Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rule – Colossians 2:20

Tuesday evening Rebekah and I got to see our little family one more time as Naomi, Craig and the children stopped off here in Tarboro for the night on their way home to Orlando from the Jersey Shore.

It is nice to know that they now have context, that they can actually see where it is that we are living and – as we showed them around the ongoing renovation project – they can appreciate exactly how deep and how extensively we have lost our minds!

I also took the children for a long walk around historic Tarboro; through the Calvary cemetery, up St. David Street and around the Town Common, then back down Main Street, through the Town Square, and on across the river.

So it was a whirlwind in and out: the family arrived at 3:30, toured the “new” house and enjoyed my specially prepared “Dad’s signature spaghetti.” David and Beks joined me for the extensive walk around town after supper, then it was early to bed and on the road again by 5:30 in the morning. The visit was just a punctuation point at the end of our epic adventure with the children.

Living their own story:

After they had left I couldn’t help but think about how, in many ways, our children become more separate and distant as the years go by; not the story itself anymore so much as inflections within the multilayered narrative that is our life story as Rebekah and Derek.

Now they have their own story, their own children, their own values, their own priorities, their own way of making sense of this life. They are raising their own families on their own terms, and our grandchildren see the world mostly through their parents’ eyes – not ours.

Those early days when we raise them (for us less than two decades) are sudden and intense and formative and then they are done; here and – before we are nearly ready – gone; sometimes pretty much wrapped up in the first 16 years or so. Now they are – Andrew and Naomi both – more than twenty equally formative (or reformative) years into their lives as independent grown up people.

The good news is that we are all by the grace of God works in progress. Rebekah and I too have grown over this time (and stumbled and regrouped) and we are always in the process of learning and discerning and adjusting and growing into the possibilities God intends for us to embrace.

So my prayer, my heartfelt and earnest and increasingly humble prayer, is that we all (Derek, Rebekah, Andrew, Naomi – and, I pray so hard, the grandchildren) see ourselves as God’s good creation. Not just as God’s creation but also as God’s re-creation, partners in the Creator’s dynamic and purposeful plan as we continue to be faithful.

Faithful:

To be faithful. Read the whole of Colossians Chapter Two, but take special note of this powerful sentiment from Paul:

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in Jesus, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. (Colossians 2:6-9).

Live your lives in him, rooted and built up in Jesus, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Colossians 2

In the firmest of conviction and the very real power of love – DEREK