Never the Same

There are certain things you get used to hearing when people find out you’re having your first child:

“Hope you’re prepared for a lot of sleepless nights!”

“You two are going to make great parents!”

“Do you already have [insert baby accessory that’s on the registry]?

To each of these I started to develop rote responses over the course of Lindsey’s pregnancy—a good-natured joke here, a word of thanks there. But there was one statement that always left me unsure how to respond, “Your life will never be the same.”

What are you supposed to say to that?

I was never sure. It’s such a profound thing to say to someone, almost always uttered by someone who knows of what they speak, i.e. a parent. Countless times I was assured that when I looked into my son’s eyes for the first time, I would feel a kind of love I’d never felt before, that my priorities would change forever, and that I would be hit with a simultaneous rush of responsibility and joy. So many people told me this, in so many different ways, that I defiantly started to wonder if they knew what they were talking about.

But they were right, of course. I don’t know if that wave of love rushed over me the moment I held my son for the first time—after all, when your wife is lying prone on the operating table and your child is being brought into the world, adrenaline and fear pretty much crowd out all other emotions. But as early as that night, when I laid on the too-small couch in our hospital room and held him against my chest until he fell asleep, all those advisors from the previous nine months were proven correct. In practical ways and emotional ways, my life was changed.

But what no one prepared me for was how it would change my ministry.

Helping the poor has always been important to me, because, you know, Jesus. But where before, I could hear stories about impoverished families and feel disconnected from their struggle, now it seems like my eyes well up with tears every time. Those kids are hungry, I think. Those parents don’t know what to do, I think. And now as I think, I feel torn up inside. Now I can’t hear a story like that without stopping to pray.

I’ve always had sympathy for single parents, imagining how hard it must be to work all day, sometimes at multiple jobs, and still find time and energy for their kids. But now that sympathy has been transformed into a deep and abiding respect—no longer do I regard single parents as harried, but as heroes. Look at the sacrifices they’re making, I think, and I’m filled not with pity, but wonder.

I’ve always enjoyed seeing kids engaged in the life of the church. But where before, I was happy to let them do their thing in the comfort of the children’s department, now I want to see and be a part of every new discovery they make about the Lord and His gospel.

Even my own personal relationship with God has deepened. “Son of God” has always been a title that helps me understand who Jesus is. It’s right there in the Bible, after all. But now, when I think about the idea of God sending His only Son to live and love and minister and die...it’s so much harder for me to fathom than it ever was before. A love I always knew was wide and long and high and deep now seems wider, longer, higher, and deeper.

Faith grows in all kinds of ways—in prayer, in study, in suffering, in community. For 20 months and counting, mine has grown in fatherhood. So to all those who told me my life would never be the same, thank you. I never could have known how right you’d be. Honestly, I’m not sure even you knew. But the Father did.