I dabble in the kind of parenting that steers my children into “learning spaces,” to borrow a line from Christopher Hall, places of intentional difficulty and struggle.

Maybe it’s a high nook they have to jump into my arms from, or tasting some unknown food my wife has recently made, or retrieving a handful of diving rings from the deep end of our swimming pool.

Why do I do it?

Why do I push them?

To make their life hard?

No. I put my children in uncomfortable spaces to challenge them to grow: to illumine their minds, strengthen their skills — hopefully to deepen their maturity.

I know, by my own stumbling feet, that a small struggle embraced today can be the impetus, a few months later, for a new freedom they never imagined, a freedom that will nourish and delight them, a freedom that will lead them to greater freedoms still.

In other words, I do all of this because I love them.

And this is the reason for the Purgative way: God loves us. He loves us just the way we are, and he loves us too much to let us stay that way. God’s love woos and weans, pulls and pushes, draws and drives.

Love — the tough and tender kind — is the motivation for all our purgation.