How God Used Parenting to Purify Me
/By Moses Sanchez
Photo: jensine may
We stood silently on our bed. The silence was a mere facade, concealing the war of emotions weighing on my spirit. I fumbled through my wording, trying my best to catch them before they left my lips, but it was too late. Only three weeks into my marriage, I had made my wife Marilette cry. With tears, she spoke, “So are you saying this is my fault?” I stood silently for a few seconds and then said, “Yes.”
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On September 1, 2015, we celebrated our four-year anniversary and then two days later, we celebrated the arrival of our third child: Phillip Daniel Sanchez. With the arrival of every new child, I am forced to grapple with so many questions as a father, some stemming from our culture’s view of children, others from my own insecurities:
How will you provide for them? Don’t you know kids cost money? Moses, do you really know what you are doing? Do you have what it takes to raise children, manage your home, and help lead a ministry in New York City?
These questions continue to pelt me like pouring rain on a window. Yet every time I give myself space to think about it, I am always taken back to that first argument that I had with Marilette four years ago. Four years ago, as a newlywed husband, a breakthrough would occur that would forever shape the man that I am, the man I'm becoming.
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“Yes.” I said, carelessly.
Marilette had just revealed the results of an at-home pregnancy test, which was positive. We had attempted to use Natural Family Planning, a method of birth control in which a couple tracks the woman’s signs of fertility to help them achieve or avoid pregnancy. Because much of the tracking falls on the woman’s shoulders, I felt justified in putting the blame on her.
Her silent response left me plenty of room to blurt out my defense, but one look into her eyes muted any words that tried to come out. She was crushed. Her tears only confirmed the damage my words left on her.
In that moment, as we sat on opposite sides of the bed. Her sobs filled the air and sorrow began to fill my heart. I dropped to my knees, asking for her forgiveness. And then, like a spotlight bringing into view a hidden part of the stage, God showed an ugly, as yet unexplored, part of my heart: doubt, fear, and blame, all based in a lack of knowledge of God’s character.
In the ensuing days, I wrestled with my junk that God had surfaced during that argument. As I prayed one morning, God took me on a little journey showing me how he was Jehovah-Jireh, the Great Provider. He took me to the lines that my family and I would stand on waiting to receive food from the local church pantry in the South Bronx. He was the Great Provider. He took me to the five foster homes in which I lived during one year as an eight-year-old boy. He was the Great Provider. He showed me my adopted mother Aida who took me in as a mischievous boy, hungry for stability and love. He was the Great Provider. He took me to my college days where the Lord provided scholarships for me to attend college, and allowed me to be the first in my immediate family to graduate. God has always been and always will be the Great Provider. There would be no difference with the arrival of our first child, Jeremiah, or our third, Phillip.
In his book Sacred Parenting, author Gary Thomas writes:
“We must see parenting as a process through which God purifies us--the parents--even as he shapes our children."
News of Marilette being pregnant just a month into our marriage was a surprise to us, but not to God. As I look back--the hurtful words, the deep sobs, and the sweet moments of prayer--I wouldn't want to have it any other way. While God was shaping little Jeremiah in Marilette's womb, he was also shaping the heart of a father.
