This is where I find myself. I'm stepping into a huge new chapter of my life. Probably the most important chapter I will ever know. 3 weeks ago, my wife gave birth to our first baby, a boy named: Brycen Michael.
He has changed my life completely. In the best possible way.
I'm discovering things about myself, that I couldn't have ever begun to fathom without him. It's really made me stop and think about the implications of being a father. A while before Brycen was born, a good friend asked me, "has it sunk in yet?" - I had to admit that it really hadn't hit me that I was going to be a father in less than a couple months. He then went on to say, "it won't really hit you, until you have him in your arms. Reality will hit you right then and there that you are responsible for him, and he can't do anything without you."
He was right, up until the moment that I heard his first cry and when i felt Brycen in my arms, it hadn't really sunk in. I was a father. I had a little piece of my heart resting there in my arms. Nothing could have prepared me for the magnitude of heart-wrenching joy that I suddenly felt for this child in my arms. There was such an up-swelling of emotions that I wasn't expecting, and over the first few hours I started contemplating my life. This is what came through during the next 48 hours while we waited to be discharged from the hospital:
I grew up not really having a 100% devoted or invested father. My father was absent. He was there, but not really. I had him physically for a few days a month, but the connection that a son builds with his father through face-time... I never got that. Even in the first few moments that I held Brycen, while Keely was getting stitched up, I could tell that there was something instinctive, dare i say something visceral that was connecting my heart to this little baby. I never thought I could experience such a mix of emotions all in a flash of a moment. I felt pure joy and peace, and total fear and anxiety all at once. It was so overwhelming, but in the blink of an eye all of my emotions were gone when I looked down and saw him looking up at me completely content. He wasn't crying. He wasn't screaming. He just was there in that moment with me.
Now I know that he will never remember those first moments that we shared, but I can be certain that I always will. I will remember starting to hum Queen's "bicycle ride" while I rocked him away to sleep. I will remember hearing his first cry. Seeing his eyes for the first time. Feeling his heartbeat. Watching his chest rise and fall with each breathe.
All of this has really sprung a deeper contemplation. How unfathomable is it that God THE Father, my heavenly father, could love me even more than I could ever love my own son? How unfathomable is it that God THE Father could feel every emotion that I felt to an infinite level? How could it be that when I was born, God THE Father had me in his arms, and wasn't overwhelmed with fear and joy, anxiety and hope? He simply was, is and always will be God THE Father. The instinctual feeling, the visceral connection that I felt towards Brycen when I first held him, how infinitely more is the connection that God has with my heart.
I think I, as probably most of you would agree that you do the same, take for granted the deep and intrinsic connection that is built into our hearts for God THE Father. We see him as an all-powerful deity, we come with fear, we come with hesitation, we come with doubt. I don't believe that is what He desires from us. He desires to hold us, He desires to guide us, He desires to teach us, He desires to be loved in the same way that I want my own son to love me. I don't want Brycen to be afraid of me, I don't want Brycen to hesitate coming to me, I don't want Brycen to doubt me. God THE Father wants His children to just be. Nothing more, nothing less. he wants us to be, like Brycen, in a moment with our Father.
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