Christmas Eve

Dear baby Titan-

So we had a vote last Sunday at the Fusion 78 Christmas party, and the group elected that we shall from now until your birth, regardless of your sex, refer to you as baby Titan, named after a gladiator from the American Gladiators show from the 1990's you'll of course have never seen it, but it was epic. I definitely recommend that you google it, or since by the time you read this, there will search engines directly linked into everyone's brains, just think about it and you'll get the connection.

Anyways, I sent your mom to bed because i was trying to watch a football game and ever since she got into this pregnancy thing, its completely jacked her sinuses and she now sounds like a grizzly bear, so she was sleeping on the couch and i couldn't hear. i sleep on the couch sometimes when i can't take it anymore, but i digress. So i'm sitting here an hour before midnight on the last Christmas Eve that i'll ever be without you, like ever, which is so crazy. Tomorrow your grandpa and grandma and aunt amber and uncle miah and uncle john and cousin elijah will all come over to celebrate the day, and i'm really excited about it. I love spending time with family, love taking care of people.

In a way though, its weird for me too. because all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, your mom and i have stepped into this role of hosting Christmas. Nothing extravagant, just cleaning the house, buying food, making sure that everyone has some fun gifts to unwrap on Christmas day, the stuff that parents do. the only thing is that it wasn't so long ago that i was a kid, burning my tongue on hot chocolate while we drove around looking at christmas lights, playing with the hot wax from the candles in the candlelight service (i still do that though),  opening pajamas as my one Christmas Eve gift EVERY year, waking up super early to rush downstairs and open stockings and eat cinnamon rolls, stacking all of my gifts away in a corner somewhere so i wouldn't lose anything. I have so many wonderful memories of why i loved this holiday, and in a way i feel like i'm mourning the end of my childhood, the wonder, the anticipation, the innocence of it all.  I'm so incredibly excited about this next chapter of life. I've dreamt about being married and having kids and being a great dad for a long time, and i'm realizing that there is increasingly diminishing room for selfishness in my life. Part of the journey of life is discovering the joy of finding fulfillment in the fulfilling of others. Turning the focus of your effort and energy to taking care of those who cannot do for themselves. Its a really difficult transformation to endure, being molded into image of Jesus by denying yourself, but man I'm really excited to become more like him.

I didn't really intend for this to become a preachy note, but the deeper into this life journey I get, the more and more i depend on my Father God for strength and peace and provision and guidance and mercy and just plain old love and acceptance. Its like reverse growing up. The more independent i become in my life and the more others depend on me, the more i must turn to God and lean on him. there's a scripture that talks about, when i am weak, then i am strong. that's so very much where i am. Nights like tonight, when its tough to swallow life, i'm drawn back again into a dependance on God as my help, my source.

Anyways, next year we'll have a cheesy family picture to send out to every one, you'll be nearly 7 months old, hopefully past the ugly newborn baby stage. Love you baby T- Pops

baby kicks

So today turned out to be an amazing day. Went with Afton to do some Christmas shopping and then went to the week 13 doctor's appointment. The doctor did an ultrasound, and for the first time we saw our baby looking like a tiny human. Even though only 3 inches long, we could definitely tell baby was a human being with a spinal cord, legs, arms, and brain. The highlight of the day, maybe even of the month was seeing baby kick his/her little legs and squirm around. I couldn't stop smiling. Afton couldn't stop talking about it. We are so excited, and for the first time, i wasn't thinking about money or logistics, daycare or fixing up a nursery. That baby kicking its tiny legs had my entire attention. It's funny to hear people talk about how childbirth is this miracle, but then to see my wife's body change, her belly grow, to see all the queasiness and then to see a tiny tiny baby kicking around, it really does defy my understanding of how things happen. I can't imagine pawning off something so wonderfully inexplicable as just an accident. I can't wait to meet my child, whoever she or he is.

what is a father?

so father is a pretty broad term. is a father just a sperm donor, a breadwinner, a disciplinarian? a little league coach, someone who walks his daughter down the aisle, fixes leaky faucets, teaches you to drive?

when i think of father, somehow i get this picture of this medieval king standing by his son, teaching him how to hold his sword, how to train for battle, whispering lessons about honor and courage, kindness and mercy, instilling a sense of purpose and confidence, bestowing a heritage of nobility. then i think of a father with his daughter, teaching her many of the same lessons, of courage, strength, of grace and showing his daughter that she is lovely and worthy of respect.

there are so many times when i just imagine myself as a father, in the fun happy times, but also in the hard times. i wonder how i'll respond when my son lets me down, or when my daughter gets a broken heart. will i make time to teach my son how to be a man, but give him space to become his own apart from my shadow. will i teach my daughter how lovely she is so that she doesn't run to some hairy legged idiot to find out.

more and more as i think about fatherhood, i realize that i still need to be fathered. that God is still working in me to reclaim the lost and broken parts of my heart. that only by letting go of my fears and hurts and even what i consider my strengths and sacrificing them before his greatness can i hope to imitate the great love he has for his creation.

i'm really thankful for 9 months. we go to the doctor on monday. it doesn't seem really real yet. i know my wife's body is changing in so many beautiful ways, but it just doesn't feel like i'm there yet. will i be, that is the question. can i get where i need to be to redeem fatherhood for my family. i guess we'll find out.

fatherhood

so my wife is 3 months pregnant. we are super excited, somewhat terrified but mostly excited. from my own yearnings as a son, i came up with this idea to write to my future spawn, nothing in particular, just my thoughts, my hopes, dreams, fears, etc. there's something in really knowing who your father is that helps you sort through discovering who you are and what you can become. so that is mostly what this is about for me, just an easier way to collect my thoughts for my children so that in 30 years when they are in a similar spot, they can gain some comfort from my experience, of course in 30 years, blogs will be directly linked by computer to your brain, so this won't be nearly as cool then...

the question in my mind right now, the one that really sticks with me, is what kind of father will i be?

being in vocational ministry brings me into contact with a lot of people, and to say that people are dramatically impacted by their relationship or lack thereof with their father is a ridiculously huge understatement. so many of the issues that plague our society can be traced to the breakdown of the family which can be traced to the weakness of men as fathers. fatherless men produce fatherless children.

i was blessed. my dad was loving, an amazing picture of the servant leader, a man willing to put all others before himself. he taught me to work hard, to care for others and that i could do anything i wanted to do, except be an accountant. and yet there is still to this day something missing from that father-son relationship. my dad has for a long time seemed broken, unable to impart wisdom and direction because he seems himself as lacking. so in many ways i have been forced to blindly feel my way through manhood. i taught myself to shave, worked my way through college, chose majors, jobs, churches all on my own. my dad was unwavering in his support of my ability to do, but unwilling or unable to show me how. its pretty heartbreaking to ask your father for some advice on marriage or fatherhood and to be met with some dismissive joke. so my relationship with my father has left me with this strong desire to take all the great things my dad taught me, and build on that to bridge some of the gaps in our relationship.

so, fatherhood.