A letter from August 12th, 2013

You’re 2 years & almost 7 months when I’m writing this, and I'm sending it so you receive it on your 14th and 1/2 bday. We’re living in West Des Moines. You’re a happy, respectful, energetic and healthy kid. I know you will go through seasons of change where you will rebel, and I know these seasons well, having been quite the rebellious kid and adult, and having had to live through some harsh and painful times. I would seek to keep you from these times, but I am not so ignorant to the fact that yes, troubles will happen in your life. Pain will occur. Losses will transpire. Actions have repercussions. We will love you throughout. I want to give you the best gifts I can. This doesn’t always mean it’s the most delicious, shiny, expensive or treasured thing in the value that your mind processes it to be. I want to give you a relationship with Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind from sin. THAT is the best thing ever. Sin is horrible, and it brings a painful toilet bowl-like set of like downward-spiraling life events. I would strive to have you avoid knowing that pain, while understanding that sometimes God’s plan is that we go through such pain in order to burn away the dross and be purified, like gold is in the furnace. Here’s a succinct description of the Bible: Man's complete ruin and sin. Man saved by God's perfect remedy in Jesus Christ. Genesis 1-2 is the first sentence and Genesis 3 through the end of Revelation is the 2nd. I want to give you the VERY best thing I can… but I can’t by my own efforts. I want to give you that which will get you into the best place: heaven. This is only through Jesus and I am miserable that I can’t give that to you. Only God can give anyone the gift of faith, by undeserved grace, and we can’t order it up via a recipe of some sort. We have to seek Him above ALL things, and He will condescend to us. We can’t do ANYTHING good to warrant Him loving us. The bad news, like the acknowledgement of of your sin, is needed before you can obtain the gift of God, through the redemption of Jesus Christ, whom God put forth as a propitiation by blood to all those who will receive Him, by faith. This is what makes us Biblical Christians. You Mom & I don’t have a crazy notion of God. We know we’re sinful, and we have come to know that only through Jesus can we spend eternity with God. On a slight tangent, hopefully by now in your life I haven’t stated this too often that you roll your eyes at it: Renaissance painters painted the demons and Lucifer as blue because they were cold since they are far from the warmth and light of God. Being a “good guy” or pretty decent man doesn’t get you fellowship with heaven for eternity. Seek Him and His Will sincerely through a correct interpretation of the Bible, His Word of the History of Redemption, and you will find joy. I think because my parents didn’t communicate with me hardly at all that I want to communicate with you. It’s also because I love you – YOU. Not because of what you have or will do, but because you’re you. My son. It makes me smile broadly to think or say that. I didn’t engage my parents in frequent conversation, and I left their home knowing I needed to break that in order to have healthy relationships. I know I’m giving you a lot of things to consider and absorb, but I hope you’ll take them as the good – and true – advice that they are and were intended to be in your formative years. You may not know the heavy weight of adulthood yet, but when you do, you may look back at your youth and ponder multiple aspects of it. You’ll probably ask yourself questions, and in anticipation of that here are some answers, too: ---“Was I a happy child?”--- Oh yes, you were – very much so. We constantly called you “silly goose” and “goofy kid” from your actions, speech and play. You walked VERY early, taking 3 steps when you were 6 months & 20 days old. Soon after, you were RUN-ing! People often comment, “Wow, he’s fast!” or “That’s one fast kid.” You weren’t forced to run; you just chose to run most times in these first coupla years. Honestly, we wish you’d walk sometimes! You whine a bunch about lots of things these days – but everyone did when they were 2 years old. My thought on raising you comes from my experiences with my parents – my Dad was liberal & almost not there when it came to raising me, and I figured I’d rather have a father who was more disciplinary than a wet noodle, and never really taught me anything directly, or by teaching me, and my Mom cow-towed to his way of keeping a family while expecting me to know things not taught me, so I’m raising you to be accountable - without ******* your joie de vivre, and seeking – with self-imposed wise constraint instead of going hog-wild in exercising your freedoms, and learned – knowledgeable (yes, that’s how you spell that word correctly) but flexible and not rigidly adherent to something without reason or just because you committed to it previously. ---“What was I like as a kid & what was I doing at X age, because I don’t know how at which age my first memory was?” Well, I kinda already answered some of that, but I haven’t mentioned that you are a runner. No doubt about it, you LOVE to run. Walking as early as you did no doubt also played into this fact. I was a track 100, 400 & 800 meter runner, mostly as the anchor since I was usually the fastest in those races. I think you’ll be something like me. You Mom doesn’t like to run, but I think you got my athletic genes. It looks like you got her looks, PTL. I wonder if you’ll be able to make it a habit to try to revisit your earliest memories like these early years. You shouldn’t expect to, but it would be neat if you were able to recall how colorful and tasty the birthday cake at your first birthday was before you pulverized it between your fingers and face and chest. It’s tough to recall these early memories because nobody ever sits down with their kids and says, “Ok, Johnny, you’re 1 year and 3 months old now and you’re eating raisins.” I have a friend who had a recurring dream of being suffocated and in the dark. He claims that when he was about 25 years old that he concluded this dream was him remembering when he was born. I’ll write more in detail about that it another email. I don’t know what age you will be when I send this, because I haven’t decided yet. I’m writing this in an email draft as I do most of the messages I want you to get in the future. I hope to discuss with you later what some of your childhood memories are. ---“What was my first word?”--- You’d squeal and say the gibberish pre-construct of some words. But “ball” was your first official word, though you said “Da” or “Dad” before that. You Mom & I agreed that we weren’t going to count “Dad” or “Mom” as your first word, though you didn’t say “Mom” or “Momma” until quite a few months after speaking these words. These days, you’re saying cute almost-words like : “i-kay-da-da” (cicadas) “doe-woe-woe” (bulldozer) “Motor car” (motorcycle) You get very excited when we’re out walking and 1 drives by. Mom says you’ll never ride one as long as she lives. And I concur. You should feel blessed that we do eventually let you drive our car(s). Driving is a privilege, not a right. “mowing” (‘lawn mowers’ or anything neat that has wheels, or anything whose proper name you don’t know) “OK” - instead of ‘yes’ “Bean-knee” (‘Binky’, the name of your pacifier, which we’re trying to rid you of, and unsuccessfully so far) “Mmm” (you just can’t yet say ‘Moo Cow’, but yet you can say “Moon”, go figure) I’ll send you some more emails at this address I created for you to receive emails from me & Mom in the future. I’ll try to answer more and other questions I can think up which you may want answered about your early days. I love you SO very much. Though this is a long email, words seem like such insufficient communicators to truly express my true sentiments.