Bow & Arrow

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, “Speak to us of Children.”
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
-Kahlil Gibran

I don't know a thing about this guy (he's some old poet I guess, hopefully not a crazy). Nonetheless, I think this is such a lovely way to say that our children do not belong to us. They are simply on loan to us for a while. Jason & I feel tremendously blessed & humbled to be chosen to care for Caroline...to be her stable bow.

And he said: I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3