Better Than Paradise

 As I started to swipe my page to the right, updating to the new week of the "Come Follow Me" program, I stopped.  The art by Kendal Ray Johnson at the top of the page caught my eye...and then my heart.

The title was particularly arresting: "Better than Paradise." I paused.

I thought about the choice of Adam and Eve to make the hard choice to have children and, thus, leave their paradise garden.

I thought about the choices newly married couples make to have children and, thus, leave their "paradise garden" of more carefully structured lives, travel, freedom and finances--replacing it with the chaos and uncertainty that children bring.

I thought about the choices of millions of people to make family and relationships a priority and, thus, leave their "paradise garden" of carefully controlled isolation.  A "paradise" of perceived control.

Relationships and families are messy.  Having children brings SUCH heartache, struggle and disruption of a carefully idealized world.  Sometimes we have to create families or relationships that seem--at first--less than ideal through adoption or foster care or volunteering.  But I've never heard a parent or foster parent or volunteer say that it wasn't worth it to create those relationships.

Family relationships of any kind are completely worth it.  They are BETTER than paradise.

I hear of more and more young people making the choice to delay having children because they want to "finish this" or "experience this" or "get ready this way."  Family sizes are shrinking, often becoming non-existent in people's fear of leaving their personal Gardens to embrace the imperfection, uncertainty and completely real burdens that relationships and families bring into one's life.

But they are missing so much.

My joy, my heartache, my struggle and my sacrifice is so real, but I believe I have found a truer, deeper paradise in the middle of so much uncertainty and perceived imperfection.

And there is truly "no other way."

Better than paradise, indeed.