An Offspring Epiphany

The dramatically unexpected reorientation of my life and priorities around Sigrid has led me to reflect on the commitment of God towards his children. Its amazing how our experiences give us new insight into the nature of the God of the bible. 

Our experience of Sigrid has added depth and breadth to the reality that God loves the people of our world simply because they are his offspring.  Not because they love him back. Not because they haven’t filled his world with poop, spit-up, and far more destructive things. God loves his children because they are his children. It doesn’t mean he isn’t at times frustrated with their decisions or choices. It does mean that in a genuine passionate sense, God loves our world. 

It is that love that also makes sense of why he hates the brokenness of sin and its tragic consequences- from deception and selfishness, to autism and abuse, to strokes and Alzheimer's. His love is behind his frustration with our broken choices and broken world. The two are inseparably linked. I’m glad to be part of a kingdom in which something is being done to address brokenness and set it right. I have hope. The world is broken, but God, because of his love, is not ok with it. He's committed to setting it right. He loves our world. 

Back in Business!

Its been almost two and a half years since our last blogpost, but Sonja and I want to get back into blogging for a couple reasons. It gives us an opportunity not only to write, which we both enjoy doing, but also because it’s a special time for us to praise God for good things which he has done as well as lament the brokenness we see in our world. 

Among the many great things God has done in our lives over the past couple years, the greatest has been the gift of our daughter, Sigrid Storm Reader. She’s just over two months old- and has been a source of great joy and laughter even though she can’t walk, talk, play, or interact very much. Right now, she’s mostly limited to sleeping, pooping, eating and crying. However, in recent weeks, she’s begun interacting with us in some awesome ways. She’s started to recognize faces and can follow us around the room with her head and eyes. More importantly and more exciting to us, she recently started smiling in response to our faces and our talking. Its great. I had no idea a small, completely helpless (but adorably cute) person could make such an impact and draw so much affection from two people who are admittedly not really kid people. Changing an explosively charged diaper, getting peed on while trying to put on a new diaper, or getting chunked with spit-up all sounded like wretched and horrible possibilities three months ago. Now, its part of daily life and we don’t mind it at all.

All that said, it’s a new stage in the adventures of Paul and Sonja. Hope you’ll join us as we continue our journey!