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In giving us children, God places us in a position of both leadership and service. He calls us to give up our lives for someone else's sake - to abandon our own desires and put our child's interests first. Yet, according to His perfect design, it is through this selflessness that we can become truly fulfilled.

I think that all of us either lose touch with the child inside us or try and hold onto it because it so precious to us and it's such an extraordinary part of our lives.

Sometimes I think God loves the ones who most desperately ache and are most desperately lost - his or her wildest, most messed-up children - the way you'd ache and love a screwed-up rebel daughter in juvenile hall.

It's always been my feeling that God lends you your children until they're about eighteen years old. If you haven't made your points with them by then, it's too late.

Thing is, I went to a born-again Christian high school, was brought up in a traditional Mormon family where these ideas about parenting are of structure and sacrifice. To think outside of that idea of family and parenting that I've grown up with is tough but also very freeing.

For many people who were never religious or who leave the religion of their childhood behind, it's the experience of having children of your own that brings an urgency to the question of what you believe.

Honestly, I feel like everything in life happens for a reason, and my son has been the greatest gift that God has given me in my life and been the most game-changing thing that's happened to my life, in a necessary way.

Every child is a thought in the mind of God, and our task is to recognize this thought and help it toward completion.

When it comes down to it, I believe that, having made the decision to bring children into the world, I owe it to them to be as present as I can in their daily lives and to try my best to stay alive until they've made it through to adulthood.

Even if you were aware of children and felt compassion, when you have your own, it multiplies. It breaks your heart to know that there are so many children in the world suffering so much.