The Man My Son Resembles

Sometimes I look at my son, and for a brief moment, my heart forgets how complicated life has become.

He's usually doing something completely ordinary. Looking out the window. Chasing a bird. Smiling at a stranger. Trying to hand me a rock he somehow believes is treasure. Then he turns toward me, and I see it.

His father's face.

It's always unexpected.

Some days it's the shape of his smile. Other days it's his eyes. Sometimes it's a tiny expression that lasts less than a second, and suddenly I'm looking at the man I married through the face of our little boy.

I never know what to do with that feeling.

It's beautiful.

And it's heartbreaking.

At first, I thought seeing so much of his father in him would make healing harder. I thought it would constantly reopen old wounds. Instead, something much stranger has happened. Loving my son has changed the way I remember the man I married.

Not because it excuses what happened.

It doesn't.

Not because it erases the betrayal.

It can't.

But because my son reminds me that no human being is ever only the worst thing they've ever done.

There was goodness there too.

Otherwise, this beautiful little boy wouldn't exist.

That thought humbles me.

Sometimes I catch myself smiling at features that used to remind me of pain. The smile that once belonged to a complicated marriage now belongs to an innocent little boy who has never lied to me, never manipulated me, never made me question my worth. Somehow God has taken something that once caused grief and allowed it to become one of my greatest sources of joy.

I don't think that's an accident.

Only God could redeem something so quietly.

There are moments when I wonder what my son will be like when he's older. Will he laugh the same way? Will he become fascinated by books? Will he ask endless questions? Will he inherit some of my father's gentleness? Will he carry pieces of the man I married that I haven't even seen yet?

I don't know.

What I do know is that my responsibility isn't to fear what he'll become.

It's to help him become who God created him to be.

I pray for him constantly. Not that he'll be successful. Not that he'll be admired. Not even that he'll be brilliant.

I pray that he'll become a good man.

A truthful man.

A humble man.

A man who loves God more than his own pride.

A man whose wife never has to wonder whether she's safe with him.

A man whose children never question whether they're deeply loved.

Maybe that's why my son has become such a profound teacher in my own healing.

Every time I look at him, I'm reminded that love doesn't always erase pain.

Sometimes it transforms it.

And perhaps that's one of God's favorite miracles.

To take what once made us weep...

and place it in our arms until, little by little, it becomes one of the reasons we smile again.

Tonight, after I tucked him into bed, I stood there for a few extra moments just watching him sleep.

He looked so peaceful.

So trusting.

I realized that this little boy has no idea how much healing God has done in me simply by making me his mother.

Maybe one day he'll read these words.

Maybe he never will.

Either way, I hope he always knows this:

He was never a reminder of what I lost.

He became one of the greatest reminders of what God gave me.

💜