I just want to feel, real love, fill the home where I live in.
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Not too long ago, I looked at children and didn’t see amazing creations of God, but rather annoying inconveniences. (You can read more about my conversion from atheism on my personal site.) This view of children was the result of years of living selfishly and becoming severly twisted in my heart and mind.
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Fortunately, God had mercy on my poor soul and has been transforming me, correcting the ways I viewed children. One of the ways I cooperate with God in this transformation is by, whenever I see a baby or child, saying to myself: “That’s what real love is.” It’s real love because it is God creating new life in the marital embrace of the husband and wife. The child is the fruit of the love of the two spouses for each other and for God.
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Having a child is also a tremendous challenge for parents, as this little being relies on them for everything. So children, by the grace of God, help parents grow in unselfish love. In marriage, a husband and wife make a “sincere gift of themself” to one another. As Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body teaches, this means to give oneself freely, fully, fruitfully, and faithfully. For spouses to withhold the frutiful part of their love from one another seriously undermines their marriage.
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When I spend time around families now, I try to imagine what it would be like to be a husband and father. Today I was blessed to be around several families of friends of mine. One young family had seven children, 9 years old and younger. All their children were so cute, and I got to play with them, helping their two sons (3 and 5) swing on the monkey bars. I also imagined how neat it would be for this family as they grew up, in a good and loving family of God, and how fondly they would remember their childhood, as well as what people of faith they would grow to be.
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Am I ready to have a family? I don’t think I am, nor will I ever be, but for God. God can make me ready, or ready enough for his good purposes. He has given me a deep desire to be a husband and father, and so I trust in his time he will lead me to my future wife. He has willed for us to share in his awesome creation and for us to love our children and live in families. May his kingdom come!