We’re officially two days past our guess date (due date). We’re in uncharted territory now, not knowing when the baby will choose to arrive. That’s something most people don’t know, by the way. The baby is the initiator of all major events. The baby sends a hormone signal to the mother to announce its arrival in the beginning. This hormone signal tells the mother to keep the egg and to cease flushing the system every month. At the end of pregnancy, when the baby’s lungs have reached full maturity, the baby releases another hormone signal to the mother to announce it is ready for birth. So despite all the inducing that doctors do these days, it’s based on the desire for convenience and rarely upon necessity.
But that’s not my point in writing tonight. While we’ve been anxiously awaiting our new arrival, I have been acutely aware of the fact that I have not done everything I wanted to do to prepare for this baby, and I am getting the opportunity to prepare now. Had the baby come when we hoped (end of November), I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get some important things in order, or to experience some of the joys I have recently discovered.
Just an hour ago, I laid my hand on my wife’s belly and began to listen to the Lord. I wanted to hear from Him about my child before he/she was ever born. I have a strong sense that the baby is a female, but we won’t know until the birth day. I will be ecstatic over either a boy or girl, so don’t take that to mean that I’m “hoping” for a girl. As I lay beside my wife, I began to write a few things that the Lord shared with me. Just a few words about my child which I will share with that child some time in the future.
If you’ve never prophesied or listened to God speak over your unborn child, you’re missing out. If you have the opportunity, please do it. It’s amazing to hear God share mysteries with you about a person you’ve never met. Especially when you don’t even know the gender of the child. It was a precious time to me of listening to God speak. I would very much like to do it again if I have the opportunity before our baby is born. Then again, I’ll be praying over this child all the time, and asking God to share his thoughts with me about him/her.
Hearing God speak over your child is a major pleasure. It’s a quiet, simple pleasure, but it’s a major pleasure nonetheless. These are the kinds of things I hoped to do before our child was born that would have been sacrificed if we had rushed the birth and induced labor to fit our schedule rather than God’s.
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The clock is ticking. It’s only a matter of time. While I haven’t been blogging faithfully, I have been thinking of topics to cover. I’m thinking more and more about using my time online to educate and train my child. With that goal, and with Proverbs rolling around in the back of my mind, I’ve decided to create a series of life lessons for my child. It will be easier to write once I know if I’m speaking to a boy or a girl, but I want to begin anyway because eventually this could mean something to him or her and I want to get a head start.
I’m also hoping that one or two other people will stumble across this blog and find some benefit in these words. I am a firm believer that sharing one’s testimony is a potent method of both teaching and convincing. Philosophical concepts are great, and they have their place, but nothing is as formative and transformational as the word of our testimony.
I am so excited to meet my baby. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I am a bit terrified as well. There’s simply no way to be fully prepared and have all your ducks in a row. I am going to face situations I wasn’t expecting. I have a deep respect for the role of a father and mother in the life of a child. I know that they have far more impact on the development of a child than any school program. I know and respect the reality that I have a God-given responsibility to love and train my children. And this awesome responsibility is why I want to write down some life lessons.
They come to me at odd times - usually when I’m driving or nowhere near a notepad. But they’re important thoughts, experiences, and concepts, and I hope you are blessed by them as much as I will be by writing them. No promises on regularity, though. They come when they come.
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I spent ten years despising teenagers. I resented them for being so careless and unpredictable. In truth, they are some of the most dangerous people in society because they are prone to act based on intense emotion rather than logic, and their emotions are charged with caffeine, ginseng, tons of sugar, sexual tension, drugs, etc. I don’t trust them. Honestly, I never trusted them even when I was one of them. I didn’t fit. Of course, I hung out with the ones who tested all the limits. Maybe that had something to do with it.
I wouldn’t call myself a kid person. I mean, I worked with a LOT of kids at a daycare for a couple years and enjoyed most of it. I enjoyed the interaction - the questions, jokes, funny faces, and laughter. But outside of the job, I never paid much attention to kids. Reason? I couldn’t see what was in it for me.
Kids need things. They don’t offer much, except for some love and loyalty. On the downside, they need food, shelter, education, discipline, entertainment, intimacy, friendship, and encouragement. That’s a lot of stuff. Stuff that takes time and energy and offers very little back in return.
But I went to the gym tonight. I went to play basketball, but there weren’t enough guys to play. I practiced my shot for a solid 20 minutes before leaving. While I was shooting around, I watched this guy play with his kid. I don’t like this guy. He’s an adult child. He throws fits over everything. He’s 6′6″, black, mid to late 20s, and he’s got a major chip on his shoulder.
Today was different, though. I saw him line his son up against the wall and then bounce a tiny basketball to him. He was teaching his son to step in front of the ball and catch it. His son was maybe three years old (and did I mention adorable?) I wasn’t moved by the father’s behavior, although it was uncharaceristicly fatherly of him. Then I looked at his son. His eyes were SO wide. HUGE. He was SO EXCITED about playing with his dad. He looked at his dad with all the admiration in the world. His dad was god. His dad was the be-all end-all of existence. The sheer innocence of his trust and enjoyment of his father moved my heart.
I was petrified and awed at the same time. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks: I will be everything to my child and have the power to crush or create with him or her. The power and responsibility became more real to me. I haven’t even met my child yet, and I feel this weight of responsibility overpowering me. How can I ever take care of this child without hurting it?
I’m two months away from meeting my child. Don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. Won’t know until the birth day. But even now, it’s like pregnancy flipped this switch and I now notice things I’ve never noticed before. And I feel things more powerfully than ever. Being a father is an AWESOME thing. And by awesome I mean awe-filled and amazing and terrible.
I have a hard time imagining my child without the kinds of attitudes that come with pain. Thoughts of wide-eyed innocence seem false and manufactured, mostly because I don’t recall that part of life. Logically, I want that innocence and joy for my children, even though I cannot recall or imagine what it feels like.
Having a child on the way stirs up a lot of things. Things we often hide under the rug while we go about being functional adults. But a child demands more. A child needs to be taken care of. And I must somehow find a way to meet my baby’s needs.
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This isn’t one of those fond memory pieces. I’m not planning on overloading you with old times. Far from it.
I was writing a different post for this blog when these thoughts started to flow. I remembered playing with the kids at the daycare. I remember how the boys tried to test their strength against me. Of course, they were third and fourth graders, so they didn’t get far. But those thoughts sent me on a whirling path.
I remember being a boy. Right now, I specifically remember the feeling of being overpowered and ignored by adults. They were obviously stronger than me. I couldn’t forcefully get my way. They often didn’t understand me, and wanted something for me that I didn’t want at all.
The word is helpless. I remember that. I remember not having a voice when serious issues were discussed. I remember being treated like a pet by store employees and waiters. I was “cute”, but not a person worth listening to. Not a person worth respecting and considering.
It’s so easy to forget these things. Especially since now I am taller than most people I meet every day. Almost no one can overpower me. Not so then. I had opinions. I knew that things could be done better than they were. But no one would listen. At best, my suggestions were interesting ideas, i.e. “how cute that he has an idea.”
An adult’s greatest challenge may be realizing that little people (i.e. children…. and I guess midgets) are still people. The size of a person does NOT determine their ability to feel or ability to think. Kids are very well developed in understanding. They just haven’t learned the vocabulary yet to put those thoughts and understandings into precise expressions.
But you don’t grow a bigger heart or a more complete sense of justice. You know when you are being mistreated as a child. You know when you have been lied to. You know when you are not taken seriously. And it hurts. It hurts deeply.
We have a responsibility to succeed where maybe our parents and parents’ friends failed. We have the responsibility to respect young people. They don’t become more human with age. If anything, they can seem less human by the time they become us.
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What do you do when you know that you have no business being a father? When you know that you will bring pain to those you love? When you are broken and have no idea when you’ll be restored?
I have a child that will be born soon. How did I manage to be such a miserable failure? How could I be so unprepared? How could I get so comfortable with everyday life that I am actually surprised by these events?
My wife hates some of the things I say and feel and do. And so do I. I despise the inner darkness. I despise her inner darkness. Most Americans live their whole lives not knowing how dark they truly are on the inside. People who have been abused, raped, rejected, abandoned, ignored, and forgotten.
We are all damaged goods. We are all trying to make the best of it. And when it comes time to face the truth, we are all unprepared to face the evil things we do and have already done.
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