My Boys

I have two sons, Jonathan and Max. Jonathan will be 4 in a couple of weeks and Max was just born 3 short months ago. Being a Dad is the most awesome and humbling thing I have ever done. I love my boys more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone.
This past year has been the greatest and hardest of my life. Being a pastor has shown me that this is what God wants me to be doing, but in one year, so much has happened, that my head is still pressing against the brake pads in hopes of stopping it's spinning motion. But then I look at my boys. Jonathan, with the unmistakable pieces of pictures that were taken during my childhood and recreated in his small hands and face. From his smile to his exuberant outbursts, I lament and rejoice all at once at who he is and who he is becoming... and yet another birthday party happened today (a couple of weeks before his real birthday) and I want the world to stop for just a while so that I can take in all that is happening... but it never does. I just put Max to bed. He ate an 8 ounce bottle. I changed his very heavy diaper and wrapped him tightly in a kidopotomus swaddler and he smiled and gurgled and I swore to him, as I did to Jonathan just four years ago, that I would do my best. I told him that I knew that I would screw up a lot, but that I would give all I had to be a good Dad.
Other than the screwing up part, is that God's role in our lives? Watching from birth to death and swearing to care for us and guide and direct us even when it burns his heart and makes us cry out? If this is really the picture that the New Testament gives us in recognition of the Father's love for us, I want to cry out for joy right now, right at my kitchen table as I write these words, realizing just how much he must care for us. I'll bet that when we get to heaven, He's waiting right there with his arms wide and we will get a hug like we never have before. We are made in His image after all, and though we only see through cracked glass, my love for my boys has to be a shadow box picture of His love for us, and if that love that I know is real when I look into Max and Jonathan's eyes is even a paltry part of what His love is for us, then I am all IN.
God. I need you, and I am in awe of your Love for me... I am yours.