What I'll Tell Our Kids

I often dream about what it will be like to have kids.

Because of men and women much wiser than me, I'm aware that I’m a character in a multi-generational story. I know that someday I’ll have to tell my kids and their kids, and maybe even their kids, the story of Caleb. So I want it to be one worth telling. I don’t want to tell the story of how I took out a loan for a school I couldn’t afford, even though I didn't actually want to be there in the first place. I don’t want my story to just be one of a bachelor’s degree and a safe job, one that ends with a plain house in a boring cul-de-sac filled with other boring houses.

Someday, my family will be sitting around the dinner table. My wife will kick me under the table as I (not so) sneakily slip food to our dogs. Our kids will be out of control and we won’t have the energy, or the heart, to stop their fun. They’ll trade food, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes as an air-born projectile. They’ll knick the tabletop and scuff plates. Intermittent giggling and arguments will most certainly dominate the atmosphere. There will come a point when one of them complains about how their friend's family eats chicken nuggets, cake, and mac and cheese every night (even though they know that is a bald-faced lie).

Then, there will be a moment when the roar of our family sharing a meal settles to a rumble, and in that moment, one of my children will begin to muster a bit of courage. With his Mom’s beautiful brown eyes, he’ll look up at me and my wonderful Wife and ask, “Poppa, what were you and Mommy like when you weren’t so old and boring?”

And before Rachel, my dear Wife, can make a comment about how she’s younger than me, and I’m the only old one at the table, I’ll answer, “We were adventurers.”

One of his younger siblings, emboldened by their elder brother’s courage, will chime in, and wonder, “What does that even mean Dad?”

I’ll smile at my beautiful wife and say, “What does that even mean, Mom?”

She’ll turn her gentle eyes on me, her faded freckles stretched across dimpled cheeks, and say, “Well, It meant that we did our best to never ever be afraid, not of anything! That when God asked, ‘Who shall we send, and who will go for us?’ your Dad and I jumped to our feet and fell to our faces all at once. We tried our very best to be both strong and courageous AND gentle and lowly; both bold and humble.”

With tears barely tucked away, I’ll join, saying, “But man did we suck. We were so good at messing up. Well, at least I was. Mom was, and still is, perfect.”

Rachel will roll her eyes, and reclaim the conversation, "We were great at making mistakes, but we always ran back to the cross. Every time.”

“Being an adventurer means we were never interested in the safest route,” I’ll say, still holding back tears, “We were willing to risk everything to go where we thought God called us. It meant we were more interested in the hill country than the spoils of victory. ”

Unsettled silence will hang over the room, and then I’ll really start to cry, “Why are you crying, Daddy?” My youngest will wonder.

“I want all of you, to be adventures too,” I’ll sniffle as I wipe away tears, “I want you to take the path that requires the most faith. I want you to always do what is right, even when no one else is. I want you to love others when it’s hardest. To always fight the good fight. I don’t care if you go to college, or get a good job. I don't all too much care about trophies and white picket fences.”

“That was certainly not our mission,” my wife will add, giggling as she wipes tears off my cheeks.

“I want you to love Jesus, more than anything or anyone else, and answer his calling, despite the odds. Especially when those odds aren’t in your favor. I want you to be adventurous, prone to falling and making mistakes, but never willing to give up. I want you to know that you are loved more than you could ever dream and that you are always safe when I am with you, because - after all - your Dad is an adventurer!”

Maybe that’s what I’ll tell my kids and their kids, and their kids.

“For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia