Chapter One
Design
"Beyond desire for bodily union and beyond erotic love and romance, the meaning of man and woman has much to do with children, whether we know it or not." -Dr. Leon Kass
"Now the ones who recognize the estate of marriage are those who firmly believe that God himself instituted it, brought husband and wife together, and ordained that they should beget children and care for them. For this they have God''s word, Genesis 1, and they can be certain that he does not lie."-Martin Luther
EVEN THOUGH GOLF is too expensive and time consuming for most Americans, the golf ideal or vision is, in the words of David Brooks, a "powerful cultural influence" in suburban America. In his book On Paradise Drive Brooks writes, "In its American incarnation, golf leads to a definition of what life should be like in its highest and most pleasant state." The vision that spills over beyond the fairways is what Brooks describes as "a Zenlike definition of fully realized human happiness." In golf, and in our suburban lives, he says, "That state of grace is called par."
If you grew up in the suburbs, and especially if you live in the suburbs now, you''ll likely recognize the underlying value system that Brooks says "enshrines the pursuit of par":
The suburban knight strives to have his life together, to achieve mastery over the great dragons: tension, hurry, anxiety and disorder. The suburban knight tries to create a world and lifestyle in which he or she can achieve that magic state of productive harmony and peace. When you''ve got your life together, you can glide through your days without unpleasant distractions or tawdry failures. Your DVD collection is organized, and so is your walk-in closet. Your car is clean and vacuumed ... your spouse is athletic ... your job is rewarding ... you can thus spend your days in perfect equanimity.
In this pursuit of equanimity, there''s a threat that looms large to the orderly homes and neighborhoods-children. Brooks describes them as, "a potential chasm in the flow of par." Even though these little people are what the suburbs supposedly revolve around, it is the anxiety they often produce that makes par hard to achieve and maintain.
A generation ago, couples got married and started their families within a short time of moving to the suburbs. Today, couples are more likely to move to the suburbs and spend several years striving for and experiencing par before they start their families. Although we were already expecting our first child when we moved into our first suburban home, the majority of our neighbors didn''t have kids yet.
Even though we were expecting a baby, our pursuit of par looked a lot like that of our childless neighbors. We wanted to grow in our marital connection and intimacy while launching our careers and creating a shared life together-including a comfortable home and enjoyable experiences. Getting all those elements to harmonize with each other was hard enough; children weren''t going to be an easy addition.
In our over-the-fence conversations, we could tell that the professional couples around us weren''t sure where babies would fit in either. One couple had high-profile careers that kids would surely complicate, another couple had dogs that absorbed great time and energy, and another was more focused on stocking their home with cool gadgets and technology than in stocking a nursery. And this was in a community that regularly lands in the top 10 Best Places to Raise a Family.
In other parts of America, the pursuit of par goes even further. The pressure to have fit and beautiful bodies, a full calendar of social activities, self-actualizing careers, exquisite homes, and intense soul-mate marriages makes children an even more obvious "chasm in the flow of par." Among the range of lifestyle options, the choice to have a baby seems the most disruptive to all the other carefully balanced elements.
As we worked alongside our neighbors on landscaping, furnishing our homes, and enjoying life in Colorado, the promise of par propelled us. If we hadn''t already been expecting a baby, that neighborhood peer pressure would have likely delayed our timeline even more. Well, peer pressure, along with what came in the mail. Every week it seems we got a new catalog from Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, Restoration Hardware, or Williams-Sonoma. Their pages were packed with must-have stuff for our home, temptingly arranged, with not a single distraction from people, let alone families. They seemed to imply that the ideal home is a lot like a showroom-something that works best when it''s perfectly ordered and undisturbed.
Under the influence of that vision, it was easy for our neighbors and us to fantasize about what we could do, where we could go, and what we could have if we put children off a little longer.
One of our close friends showed us, however, where such fantasies can lead. He told us about his brother and sister-in-law''s gorgeous house filled with exquisite furniture and decorations. He couldn''t help feeling a little jealous over the nice things they had been able to collect over the eleven years of their marriage, a marriage that never included kids. But eventually, it all fell apart. "Watching their marriage end in divorce, their beautiful house just seemed cold" he said. "You would look at all that stuff and wish that a vase or something had been broken by a rambunctious child just so you could see some life in their home."
Compare that with the scene Steven Curtis Chapman paints in his song "Signs of Life":
Now, I''ve got crayons rolling around in the floorboard of my car Bicycles all over my driveway, bats and balls all over my yard And there''s a plastic man from outer space sitting in my chair The signs of life are everywhere
What Chapman describes is the opposite of par-in fact, it''s the kind of scene that makes a lot of suburban dwellers cringe. It''s messy, disorganized, and just bad feng shui. But it offers something the pursuit of par tends to miss-real life. While seeking the "highest and most pleasant state," couples chasing an elusive perfect home, yard, social life, career, and marriage often discover that the imbalance, disorder, and messiness they were trying to avoid was actually the more valuable and meaningful stuff of life.
In the Beginning
Think about Adam and Eve living in that place of bliss-Paradise (a word that happens to begin with par). There in that "highest and most pleasant state," what are the first words the Bible records God speaking to Adam and Eve as a couple?
"Be fruitful" (Genesis 1:28).
God designed their lives, their bodies, and their marriage to bear fruit. As the Bible goes on to reveal more about God''s purposes for creation, fruitfulness remains one of the most common themes from beginning to end (see Genesis 1:28-29; 9:1; 17:6; 28:3; 35:11; 48:4; 49:22; Exodus 1:7; Leviticus 26:9; Deuteronomy 7:13; 2 Kings 19:29-31; Psalm 1:3; 92:12-14; 128:3; Isaiah 11:1; 27:6; Ezekiel 36:11; 47:12; Matthew 21:43; John 15:2-16; Romans 7:4-5; and Colossians 1:10. It''s clear that God made the world to be life-giving-it''s a reflection of His creative nature. He commissioned His creation to go beyond just being consumers of the world around them. He called them-and is still calling us-to be producers.
The call to be productive in fruitfulness is in direct tension with our consumer-oriented pursuit of par. It upsets the control and harmony of our bodies, our marriages, and our lifestyles. But it also opens us up to mysteries of our purpose and to the full, abundant life that can only come through being fruitful.
Created Male and Female
Our culture is obsessed with body image. The ability our bodies have to attract and engage someone sexually has been elevated far above the miracle inherent in the sex act. Body parts that can experience great pleasure during sexual intercourse are also specifically designed to produce, incubate, and nurture new life. Because reproduction changes a woman''s body image and her availability for sexual intercourse, however, it is often seen as a lesser good. As a result, we have a cultural wedge between body image and body use-between form and function.
It wasn''t like this in the beginning. Having a child wasn''t seen as a threat to the perfect body. It was rightly understood to be the natural and desired fruitfulness for which our bodies were made. "Haven''t you read," Jesus asked the Pharisees when they questioned Him about the issue of divorce, "that at the beginning the Creator ''made them male and female,'' and said, ''For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh''?" (Matthew 19:4-5). Jesus'' use of the term one flesh resonated with those scholars who knew their Old Testament justifications for divorce. They would recognize the phrase from Genesis, but also from Malachi''s answer to the question, "And why one [flesh]?" "Because he was seeking godly offspring" (Malachi 2:15, italics added).
"Form and function should be one" architect Frank Lloyd Wright once said, "joined in a spiritual union." The form and function of our bodies were joined in a spiritual union at the beginning. Our purpose in producing families is "imprinted on our nature as human beings" writes family historian Dr. Allan Carlson, and it "can be grasped by all persons who open their minds to the evidence of their senses and their hearts to the promptings of their best instincts."
"My body and its consequent desires provided self-evident testimony to my purpose" says author Gary Thomas. "As a man, I could look at my body and discern that I was designed to be a husband and a father." Gary said he didn''t need to seek a burning bush or God''s perfect will about whether or not to have children. "God had already made His will clear. For me, the call to have children was similar to being a soldier who is ordered to ''go take that hill.''"
God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful" and built fruitfulness into their bodies, but He also reinforced the design of fruitfulness by creating earth as a verdant planet. "Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you" (Job 12:7-8). The earthy elements of our bodies testify to that same purpose. We have the same awe-inspiring ability to be fruitful. "Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways," says Psalm 128. "You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table" (Psalm 128:1-3).
A woman''s period is a monthly reminder of her potential fruitfulness-as her body releases one or two of the 450 mature eggs she has available between puberty and menopause. And during each act of intercourse, a husband''s virility is represented in the release of somewhere between 40 million and 1.2 billion sperm cells.
If just one of those millions penetrates the egg, nature''s most amazing form of fertilization begins-initiating complex DNA connections between egg and sperm, weaving together all the details for a new life. Here''s how Louie Giglio explained it to a group of young people in a message called "How Great Is Our God":
One cell from your mom met up with one cell from your dad-each one carrying twenty-three chromosomes. The one from your mom was carrying half of her DNA, the one from your dad was carrying half of his DNA, and those two cells met and merged into one single cell. And when they did those chromosomes matched and they began to form together a brand-new DNA code.
Using four characters-four nucleotides-they began to write out what we have now discovered is the three billion-character description of who you are, written in the language of God ... They described who God ordained you to be.
And when they formed together they wrote out and painted a picture which had never been written before in the history of humankind. And then that cell did the unthinkable. It set out to build [you] from one cell.
We are indeed "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). What makes it all even more amazing is what separates us from all the rest of God''s creation. While He superintends the complexities of fruitfulness throughout nature He actively participates in the miracle of human reproduction by adding a soul and ordaining the days for each new boy and girl (see Psalm 139:13-16).
Ordained for Procreation
Even though men and women have the potential to produce this miracle in their marriage, less than a third of couples see having children as the purpose of marriage. A survey by Pew Research implies that the great majority of Americans believe marriage is primarily intended for a couple''s "mutual happiness." We were raised in Christian families and attended Christian colleges, but we still went into marriage thinking primarily about the mutual happiness that we hoped to find in our companionship, sexual intimacy, and financial partnership.
The visit from the Morkens we mentioned earlier motivated us to be intentional about starting our family, but the transition from being partners to parents was still quite a change to our vision of marriage. As incredible as it was to bring our first baby into the world, the whole process-beginning with the first signs of morning sickness-felt like a major renovation of the marriage we had already built.
What we came to realize is that the "house of love" we had custom designed for our marriage wasn''t as "kid-ready" as we assumed it was. The "Mission" chapter on the other end of this book looks in more detail at the effect of children on a marriage. The context for marriage in this chapter is the tension between the unions we design for ourselves and the design God established in the beginning.
That tension grows stronger as our culture of personalization and individualism inspires couples to mold marriage in their own image. While today''s couples often seek to put their unique stamp on marriage and bring their own meaning to the union, generations before us were more likely to adapt to what marriage expected of them. We were reminded of just how much that expectation included children while watching the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice. In the closing scene, as Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth and Mr. Bingley and Jane exchange vows in a joint wedding ceremony, the priest reads from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer:
DEARLY beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman (and this man and this woman) in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man''s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is between Christ and his Church; ... duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Start your Familyby STEVE WATTERS CANDICE WATTERS Copyright © 2009 by Steve and Candice Watters. Excerpted by permission.
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