God's Own Heart
I wasn’t ready for fatherhood. I wonder if anyone ever is. Our relationship with our yet-to-be-born children is always one step removed. We can feel kicks through our wife’s stomach. We whisper there too. But we'll never know what it is like to grow new life within us; such things are too wonderful for us. Sure, once our children our born we can look into their eyes and hold them tight. But we can’t nourish them from ourselves, not like their mothers can.
Our firstborn, Daniel, once rested on my bare chest and naturally he got hungry and started to root out on top of me. But there was nothing I could offer him. I couldn’t make him content. I couldn’t calm him or quiet him. And the emotions of that feeling were, well, mixed. Part of me felt inadequate. After I gave Daniel to my wife, Marci, I left our bedroom, sat at the top of the stairs, held my head, and cried.
Intellectually I knew I couldn’t nurse Daniel myself, but parenthood evokes such raw, strange, new emotions; they all just bubbled up then. And I'm glad they came out. All these years later they still do; still prompted by the crazy trip we call parenthood.
I’m now the proud parent of three teenage kids. Daniel is 19 and mostly lives on his own. Our setup is a bit unique in that we live in Brazil and he lives in my hometown, Kansas City. He’s been with us here for the holidays, and it’s been a joy. But there’s also been a little heartache. As young adults tend to do, he’s trying to discover who he is without us. And he’s left his faith an open question. Part of me again wants to retreat, hold my head in my hands, and cry.
But another part of me wants simply to rest, as my devotional reading brought me recently to Psalm 131, which says:
“My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and forevermore.”
God not only guides us as a father, but also nourishes us as a mother. And when he says that David, who wrote this psalm, is a person after his own heart, I wonder if God had in mind thoughts like these. Like me, David never experienced what it was like to grow life or nurture it from within. I doubt he remembered his nursing days either, so I imagine this psalm was inspired by him seeing his wife care for their child. And seeing them content. And above all seeing God there too.
And so in the magic of inspiration David's words penned to God long ago are also God's words to me now:
May my heart not be too proud nor my eyes haughty.
May I not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me, including the twisted journey of faith we all take, even our children who grow up in our homes.
May I calm and quiet myself like a weaned child with its mother – content.
May I put my hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.
I have a digital picture frame up in my home in Brazil; it flickers through memories every several seconds. And one memory makes me think of this psalm: Marci and baby Daniel, both calm, quiet, and content.
Life is good. Life is gift. I can be content because I know where my hope is - it's in the Lord, both now and forevermore.