No need to fear parenting

Pastor Eric Kregel

I became a parent April 23 to a beautiful baby girl. Carys Connie Kregel was born in the Peace River Hospital weighing 7 pounds, 15 ounces. I passed the news around, receiving congratulations until a friend of mine shared an extremely honest insight. “I was scared to be a dad,” he said. “Scared to death. I told myself that if I could just survive the pregnancy, than I could manage the rest.” He looked straight at me. “Do you know what it’s like being a parent?” I shook my head. “It goes like this.” He took a deep breath. “Birth! AAAAHHHH!” “Infancy! AAAAHHHH! “Kindergarten! AAAAHHHH!” “Junior high, ten years! AAAAHHHH!” “Driving! AAAAHHHH!” “Finals, High school, dating! AAAAHHHH!” “Graduation! AAAAHHHH!” The whole room looked at him as he flushed beat red. He gasped for air. At that moment, I thought his illustration had concluded. I was going to say... “AAAAHHHH! College!” “AAAAHHHH! Graduation!” “AAAAHHHH! First career!” “AAAAHHHH! Marriage and grandkids!” “AAAAHHH! They move back home!” “AAAAHHH! They become home owners!” Then he gasped for air. Panting near the floor, he whispered, “You get the idea. I can’t go on.” Immediately, this resonated with me. As soon as my daughter was born, I was scared for her. Scared she wasn’t getting enough to eat or that she was getting too much to eat; scared for her future; scared for her health; scared about the outside world; and, sometimes, scared for no reason. It is easy to be very fearful for our children. Is the world we live in a harmful place? Certainly! Doesn’t it seem like things are stacked against our children who need to make healthy, rational decisions? Yes! And doesn’t today’s reality feel so much darker than yesterday’s memory? Absolutely! But God is still much more powerful than whatever scared us. The Bible says, “Perfect love casts out all fear.” (1 John 4:18) This passage used to confuse me because I once held that the opposite of love was hate. And shouldn’t perfect love cast out all hate? Wasn’t God against hate? Why is perfect love going against fear, when hate is it’s real enemy? But then a friend of mine shared with me an insight. She explained to me she couldn’t survive as a parent while being fearful. She crunched up her eyes, balled up her hands into fists, and crouched over. “You can’t be a parent and be this way. You won’t be able to respond to your child.” She then opened up her eyes and hands, straightening herself up. “You have to live with your hands and eyes open in order to be a parent. You cannot be afraid and love your child at the same time.” Fear and love cannot exist together: one cannot take the hand that is clenched with fear. God is the perfection, the one whose love drives out our fear that empowers us to love others around us. But how do we get in contact with His perfect love? Through prayer! Henri J.M. Nouewen asserts that prayer is the means which God unclenches our hands and teaches us how to have them open to others and unto him. In prayer, we spend time with God’s perfect power that is bigger than what we fear and, more importantly, He begins to rub off on us. Jesus lived with life open-handed and we can too by learning how through prayer. Remember the cross? The moment when all of human history changed? The moment when Jesus was surrounded by all those who hated Him and sought His destruction? Were His hands opened or closed? We can only be like Jesus through prayer, through God working in us to open our hands to love instead of clenching them in fear.