my golden child

Last Sunday at church, pastor briefly spoke about the idols In our lives. He mentioned the normal ones you think of, $$, power, physical idols like they had in the old testement. And then he mentioned “family”. that we can put our families before the Lord. Having dealt with years of infertility and being of the “lots of kids, home schooling, back to the land mindset,” I always thot that my desire for a child was a noble desire. I never equated it with idolatry. But now looking back at the last 15 years I’m pondering my desires, past and present …

I remember reading about how when a couple has an only child later in life that was greatly anticipated, the experts that know these things label it “the golden child”. this concept was made perfectly clear when Josiah was born that indeed he was our golden child. We had great hopes and dreams for him. We weren’t content to let him be who the Lord might have him be, we wanted him to be great! Successful, handsome, talented. We had placed all our hopes and dreams into our golden child. While we hoped for more children, we knew that that might not be possible with my history of infertility, miscarriages and our aging bodies.

As time went on and we discovered that Josiah was not developing on track, depression settled in. what a jolt to our golden child dream. Then learning about the extent of our son’s disabilities shut the door on all our dreams of a normal life for him. But as we’ve let go of those dreams, God has replaced them with other joys, laughter and family fun. As we’ve accepted what the Lord has brought we have blossomed in a way I didn’t think was possible. God has been faithful even when our dreams didn’t turn out the way I thot they would.

So do you have a dream that hasn’t come about? Has the Lord given you something else to replace it? Do you have a “golden child” that you need to give over to the Lord? I’d love to hear your stories.