Dec. 30, 2010

Dear Noah,

One of the characters I enjoy most from C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia series is Reepicheep, the tiny mouse with an enormous heart.

He may be small in stature, but Reepicheep’s size is no indication of what lies beneath the surface. His valor and his skills as a swordsman were legendary in Narnia. Noble in heart and bold in spirit, Reepicheep had traversed far and wide, encountering many adventures and battles in his life. All along, he conducted himself with deep honor and dignity that earned him immense respect from his countrymen.

The driving force in Reepicheep’s life stemmed from a poem spoken to him by a Dryad when he was just a baby:

Where sky and water meet,

Where the waves grow sweet,

Doubt not, Reepicheep,

To find all you seek,

There is the utter East.

“I do not know what it means,” Reepicheep tells Edmund and Lucy in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. “But the spell of it has been on me all my life.”

That poetic prophecy was fulfilled at the end of the book, when Reepicheep and his comrades finally arrived at the end of the world, in Aslan’s country. Though everyone else was to return home, Reepicheep knew he had arrived at the destination for which he had been yearning. His friends bade him a tearful goodbye, knowing they wouldn’t see him again. And though Reepicheep tried to be sad for the sake of his friends, C.S. Lewis tells us he was quivering with excitement about the mysterious land that lay ahead of him.

For the last time, Reepicheep drew his sword – the sword that had been his constant companion – and tossed it aside. “I shall need it no more,” he said. And so he disappeared from sight, as a wave carried his tiny boat to his new home.

Over the last two years, you have taken your rightful place as a member of the Ellsworth household. You have brought great joy to me, to your mama, and to your brother and sister. You have made us smile and laugh, and we have taken much delight in watching you grow and learn. God has made you the youngest one in our family. And though you may not be the smallest one forever, that’s the role you have for now.

So my prayer for you, as you celebrate your second birthday, is that you would follow the example of Reepicheep – who, although small, was a giant in so many ways. As Reepicheep’s life was fueled by a pursuit of a poem, I pray that your life will be fueled by a pursuit of the living God. As the prophecy gave Reepicheep direction and meaning, I pray that you will find similar purpose in the prophecy of Isaiah: “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.”

I pray that God will implant in your heart a desire to seek after him all your days. I pray that you will attack life with courage and nobility – that you will fight valiantly for what’s right, defending the honor of your friends and family along the way. May your life be filled with adventures aplenty. And as you encounter challenges and difficulties, I pray that you will face them with a Reepicheepian boldness that flows from a strong faith in the Lord as your refuge and strength, a present help in trouble.

Then I pray and yearn for the day when your travails and battles in this life will end, and as you prepare to enter heaven’s gates, you can cast your sword aside, because you will need it no longer. How I long to be there waiting for you, to welcome a heroic warrior to his new home.

Happy birthday, my little Reepicheep. I love you with all that I am.

Dad

August 29, 2010

Dear Emmalee,

I can’t imagine how difficult the decision was for Ruth when she vowed to leave her home and everything she’d known to follow Naomi back to Bethlehem. Ruth’s life had already been hard enough, with the death of her husband at such a young age. Now she was facing another challenge and increasing uncertainty as her mother-in-law was preparing to depart from her.

Ruth could have stayed where she was comfortable. She could have done what her sister-in-law Orpah did – bid Naomi a tearful farewell and returned to the life to which she was accustomed. But leaving Moab meant more to Ruth than simply walking away from a familiar lifestyle. It also meant turning her back on the false gods the Moabites worshiped and embracing the one true God that Naomi worshiped. “Your people will be my people,” Ruth told Naomi, “and your God my God.” That was the main reason why Ruth chose to go with Naomi – because the Lord had done a work of grace in her life and had called her in such a way that she couldn’t refuse.

It was obvious that the Lord had important plans for Ruth when he asked her to leave her pagan world and follow him in faith. But Ruth had no idea what was in store for her during her early days in a foreign land, when she was dependent upon the kindness of strangers for her very survival. God took care of her, however, and provided her a godly husband in Boaz. She eventually became the great-grandmother of the great King David, and the ancestor of the even greater King Jesus.

For the past four years, you have been a bright beam of light in our lives. I’m thankful for your exuberance and the vitality that you exhibit daily. I can’t count how many times you’ve made your mom and me laugh hysterically. You’ve always been a child quick to flash your beautiful smile, quick to laugh and quick to love. The joy you’ve brought to our lives is immeasurable.

So, Emmalee Ruth Ellsworth, as you celebrate your fourth birthday, my prayer for you is that the Lord would call you to follow him in the same way he called Ruth so many years ago. I pray that while you are still young, you would embrace Jesus Christ and his gospel, that you would in essence say to me and your mom, “Your God will be my God.”

You will find that to be the most important decision you will ever make in your life. No matter what else God may have in store for you, none of it will amount to anything if you have gotten the most important question wrong. By the Lord’s grace, Ruth got it right. She was willing to risk everything in her pursuit of the living God, and I earnestly pray that you would follow her example. It may cost you friends, or prestige, or riches, or status in the eyes of those who love this world. It may even cost you your life. But those are small prices to pay in exchange for an eternal home in heaven, which the Lord Jesus has prepared for those who love him.

Happy birthday, Sweet Pea. I love you with all my heart.

Dad

NOTE: THIS IS SOMETHING I WROTE ABOUT FIVE YEARS AGO THAT I’M PULLING FROM THE ARCHIVES

We were sitting in the living room visiting with some friends one night when our 2-year-old son Daniel emerged from our bedroom.

“Uh-oh,” he said. “Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh” is Daniel-speak for “Something is wrong,” and the phrase covers a wide range of possible mishaps. It could be something as simple as “I dropped the hairbrush into the sink and now I can’t reach it” or as serious as “I just severed my leg with a butter knife.”

You just never know.

Justifiably alarmed, my wife followed as Daniel dutifully led her back to our bathroom, where she noticed that Daniel had removed all the toilet paper from a new roll and shoved it into the trash can.

Now, the way I understand “uh-oh” is that it connotes an accident – something that wasn’t supposed to happen. Uh-oh, I dropped the remote control. Uh-oh, I spilled my water. Uh-oh, I dialed the wrong number.

Deliberately unrolling all the toilet paper and stuffing it in the trash doesn’t qualify as an “uh-oh” to me. But apparently it does to Daniel. To him, it didn’t matter how the toilet paper got unrolled and made its way into the trash can – Daniel simply knew the situation wasn’t quite right, and it wasn’t something he could remedy, so he informed us with an “uh-oh.”

Two years of fatherhood have taught me that “uh-ohs” are much more common in my life than they used to be – and the older Daniel gets, and the stronger and more daring he gets – I’m sure the “uh-ohs” will continue to multiply. But though sometimes inconvenient, an “uh-oh” always keeps us on our toes, and it makes me thankful for a precious son who definitely makes my life more interesting and fulfilling than it ever has been.

Today as I left for work, I said goodbye to my family, to our baby jumper swing and to another chapter of my life.

My wife got into the attic last night and retrieved a few of our remaining baby items. She was sending them with my parents, who were going to visit my brother and his wife, who are adopting a child. One of the things she sent was this jumpster swing suspended from a spring that hangs over a door frame. It has been a favorite of all three of our kids.

Long before they could stand up, we’d put them in the swing and they’d jump around like crazy, often laughing and squealing in the process. Sarah and I got many laughs from watching them bounce up and down. For Emmalee and Noah, we had a wider doorway where they could swing around in a huge circle. Seeing that swing always brought back happy memories of days gone by.

But those days are now a thing of the past. And bidding adieu to the swing strikes me again with the parenting paradox — that while I’m thrilled to see my children growing to maturity, and while I look forward to what the years ahead hold, the path along the way is littered with times when I realize that certain stages are past and gone forever.

I’ll miss the jumpster, and hope my niece or nephew will love it as much as my kids did.

Last fall we moved into a new house here in Jackson. One of the things we had been wanting in a new home was a setting that would encourage our kids to play outside. We found it in the house we bought. We’re surrounded by woods, and though we own only about an acre and a half of land, there are many more wooded acres around us that we walk through regularly.

My kids love to play outside, and that thrills me as a dad. In our old house, they’d go outside for a few minutes at a time, and that was it — as there was little for them to do. Now they can spend hours outside. They chase frogs and fireflies. They watch dragonflies and squirrels. They’re learning about the evils of sweet gum trees and poison ivy. They’re identifying trees and plants. And their lives are richer because of it.

I, meanwhile, manage to stay busy with all kinds of chores. I have grass to mow, sticks to pick up and a fire pit where I can unleash my inner pyromaniac. With the amount of land we have, there’s always work to be done outside, and I’ve enjoyed my time outdoors as well. As a husband, I’m sure that thrills my wife.

I recently read a book, “Last Child in the Woods,” in which the author, Richard Louv, laments what he calls “nature deficit disorder.” Louv suggests that our society, rather than encouraging children to interact with nature, in reality encourages kids to stay away from it.

“Our institutions, urban/suburban design, and cultural attitudes unconsciously associate nature with doom — while disassociating the outdoors from joy and solitude,” Louv writes. “Well-meaning public-school systems, media, and parents are effectively scaring children straight out of the woods and fields.”

Louv argues that this increasing distance from nature can be tied to all kinds of problems in kids, such as obesity, attention deficit disorder and depression. While sending kids outside won’t be an automatic cure, I think he’s onto something when he points out the benefits of kids spending plenty of time in nature. It fires their imagination and sparks their creativity, and that’s one of my priorities as a parent.

We could have afforded a bigger house on a small lot somewhere, but after living in our home for a few months now, there’s no way I’d make that trade.