The Long View by Candice Watters on 11/09/2006 at 6:55 PM

Our first baby was born just weeks before the dawn of Y2K. Our second a few months after 9/11. And this time, our third baby was born the day Ted Haggard admitted his secret sins and days before a watershed election. It could just be the nature of news, but it seems like our children have appeared on days with headlines more bleak than most.

Still, I'm hopeful. And I'm not alone. On today's Focus on the Family broadcast, Dr. Dobson struck a similar chord in discussing the meaning of Tuesday's election results. Granted, the partisan races seemed to lean heavily to the liberal left, but many of the moral initiatives in support of marriage and against "domestic partnerships" won.

It's not that conservative values are on the outs, he said, but the Republican candidates who compromise them who are.

Most interesting to me, however, was the reason he gave for his optimism and long-term view of Tuesday's short-term disappointment: his first grandson. There's something about a new baby that links you to the future like nothing else can. You're no longer content to know that things will be OK for your lifetime. The term "generational" takes on supreme importance. You find yourself seriously praying the Old Testament promises about God's faithfulness to a thousand generations.

It's a shift from being faithful to the legacy you've inherited, to suddenly being acutely aware of the one you'll leave.

Like Dr. Dobson, when I look into the face of the new baby in our home, I'm intensely motivated to get involved. I simply can't say "the end is near."