Pony Rider over Soccer Player & The Importance of Leaving the Party for Zoe

Before I had kids one of the things that I saw in my friends who did that caused me the greatest angst was having to leave a gathering of some sort because your kid was a mess.

I'm such a crazy extrovert, I mostly just want to be where the most number of people are in any given social event. I couldn't imagine having to give up the crowds in order to take care of a kid.

But over the weekend, there we were: me, Kelly and the kids at a fine and very rare gathering of most of the IV staff in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. The people were all inside. But one of my kids, the most introverted of the five of us, at least at this point, needed a break. She asked if we could go outside to the swing set.

I took a deep breath and then gladly took her hand and we went out back. I pushed her on the swing and we chatted about what she wanted to be when she grew up (currently it's a pony rider over a soccer player, but not by much).

We stayed out there for a while and then it was pretty clear that all our kids were needing to get on the road. We gathered them up and headed for the door--the first ones to leave, a station in life that pre-kids was utterly foreign to me.

Before I had kids I couldn't conceive of meeting their needs over the call of the crowd. But now that I have real kids, not a hypothetical situation, that decision isn't quite as tough. My love for them compels me to take care of them, to prioritize them over the siren call of my flesh to always have to be in the midst of the action.

And all of this matters in any number of ways. But the most important reason is the deepest needs of their soul.

I won't always prioritize my preferences or comfort for my kids. But there was one who did. There's one who left the easiest place, the place of honor, comfort, power. There's one who left the party in order to come and get us--one who gave up all sorts of "rights" in order to come get you, get me, get each one of my kids.

He didn't just leave the loftiest place of comfort, he came to the lowest point of injustice and affliction. In order to secure our place at the party, he left it. He was born in an animal feeding trough. He lived in the muck and mud and mire of peasant-class Middle Eastern society. He died a brutal and shocking death. And he came back to life and re-ascended to the party in order to prepare a place for us there.

I need to be able to leave the party, as imperfectly as I am at it, in order to point my kids to the one who did, in order that they might not ever have to. And I'm getting better at it, by God's grace.

But I'm thankful that there's one who did it perfectly--that's my hope, both for me and for my kids.