Discovering Fatherhood

Category: humility

  • Daddy’s Lap

    20140627-220424-79464189.jpg
    Claire is on my lap. We are in an doctor’s waiting room. She cries and screams because she is in pain. I hold her on my lap soothing her, living with her pain. It hurts me more emotionally and spiritually than it does her physically, that I know for sure. I rub her legs and run my fingers through her curly hair. I hold her tight against my chest and whisper, “Daddy is here. It’s going to be okay.” Claire calms down and then moves away from me as if trying to deal with the pain on her own. She stops, cries, and runs back to me. I begin the comforting process again.

    While Claire is on my lap I am able to soothe her. The pain is still present and will not go away. However, I am with her through the pain. Somehow this makes a difference.

    Her father is present in a very real way and going through this pain with her.

    This isn’t the first time you have encountered this story. This is your story. Our story. You have had pain: emotional, spiritual, and physical. You have hurt, been upset, maybe even cried. As I held Claire in that room I recognized very clearly that the pain we experience often doesn’t make sense, at least not right away and maybe never on this side of heaven. The pain is there but so is our Father. In my imperfect fatherhood I am able to recognize God’s Fatherhood. My fatherhood is an image of His. My love for Claire is powerful because it is based on His Fatherhood.

    Maybe it is tough as a man to picture yourself as a child on the lap of God the Father. Think of the times you have held your child on your lap. You can’t take the pain away but you can live in the pain with them. Our Father does the same thing. He isn’t taking the pain away, but He will endure it with you. Most of the time you and I jump out of the Father’s lap and try to deal with the pain on our own terms. Instead of coming back to Him like my daughter did we run away and find other ways to cope with the pain. Some of these ways lead to more pain. I think God the Father is waiting for us to run back to Him so that he can rub our legs, run His fingers through our hair, hold us tight against His chest, and whisper, “Daddy is here. It’s going to be okay.”

    May we have the humility, wisdom, and desire to let Him take care of us in the deepest of pains.

  • The Power of a Child

    power of a child

    There is this couple at my church that when I look at them I think ‘sophisticated’. The wife has a certain elegance that is natural to her. The husband is someone that you can tell is very educated and commands authority. This couple is always well dressed. Wife, in expensive 5th Avenue type dress and the husband in Armani suits and shoes that cost more than my entire wore drove combined.

    This couple has two young boys very close in age. The boys are good kids, but they are two and three years old, so the idea of being still in Church does not compute. There have been numerous times in which the mom tries to get the boys to sit still with no success. The father, whose strong stare probably makes his employees straighten up to attention, does little to these boys in Church.

    So 5th Avenue mom will get down on the ground inside the Cry Room and sit with the boys as they eat Cheerios on the floor. Armani dad whose authority, importance and rank is unmatched at work finds himself getting on his knees, begging his kids to be quiet and eventually succumbs to playing trucks with his boys because this is the only way to calm them down. The 5th Avenue dress and Armani suit are covered in slobber, cheerios and what looks like snot.

    Children have a unique power.

    For those of us who wear 5th Avenue Dresses or Armani suits we would never crawl on the ground with them, have people rub their dirty hands on them or noses for that manner. Yet our children have a unique power over our lives that grant them top-level clearance on us. No one else could ever get away with the things our children do or ask of us. This couple also marvels at the power their children have over them to do things that in all other circumstances would be unacceptable.

    I once heard it said that if you had the President, Congress and a crying child in the room together the child would have the most power out of these three. Presidents and Congress have authority conferred on them which gives them great power, but a crying child could stop all of them dead on their tracks in order to do whatever it takes to make the child stop crying.

    Our children change us. They need to. Things like 5th Avenue dresses and Armani suits matter little when our flesh and blood needs us. Rank and authority seem silly when our child is hungry and must be fed. Power is ridiculous when a child cries and needs to be picked up.

    I think about these things and realize that to exercise true power and authority there must be openness to humility. 5th Avenue mom and Armani dad are humble enough to get on their knees in their expensive clothes to take care of their children. This humility is something we need to embrace. We will need to get on our knees to take care of our kids. We will need to accept that they will spill, puke and poop on us. To some this may seem like weakness, but it isn’t. Humility is a great companion to power, without it there is only cruelty. Humility allows mercy, and love to enter in. Power with mercy is justice. Power with love is grace.

    I look at my daughter and the power she has over me. At times I do not want her to have that kind of hold on me, but that power humbles me. It changes me. That power helps me to be a man that recognizes the importance of exercising my power over her with great love and mercy.