A product of us and yet their own

A product of us and yet their own

Ever since Matteo was born we have been watching to see what characteristics of Mary Anne he has taken and what genes he got from me. It has been fun, but half the time I am still not sure. Half the time we still feel like we are guessing. People have said that he looks more like me or more like Mary Anne, but after looking at picture of both of us at his age we have settled into saying “he looks like Matteo”.

There is an interesting reality in the midst of this. Matteo is definitively a product of Mary Anne and I. He is a combination of our genes and shares many of our traits and a few new ones that did not show in either of us (though gene variability is a little more complicated than that simple description). In this Matteo is a product of us and yet he is his own.

I think about this as an interesting perspective on how we relate to God. We are a product of God’s beautiful and wonderfully good characteristics. We are made in his image. We have the ability and purpose to work his good and to bear his name, yet we are ourselves. We have the amazing opportunity to live into his traits and if it is possible add to his goodness in the world (though that is really only possible through joining with him in the work). In this somehow our goodness is wholly and completely of him, from him, dependent on him and yet it is our own at the same time.

We hope that one day people might look at us and say in you I can see an aspect of God, yet we bring Him present in a new context with our new variable life in our new way. This is both an incredible gift, opportunity and responsibility.