There is that first time you hold your newborn child that redefines who you are. Wrapped tightly in the little blanket, knit hat on head, eyes tightly shut, feeble and helpless. Though the last two adjectives can also be used to describe the feeling of being a new dad, it is the child in your arms that has made you one. It’s exciting and it’s terrifying. In that moment, you are full of hopes and dreams for the little one in your arms, naively expecting the best case scenario, not knowing what lay ahead. In the same way your hopes and expectations for the life this little one will live, there are expectations of your own. You have no idea what you’re doing, but you’re hoping and dreaming for the best, perhaps also a little naively, just knowing—well, hoping—you’ll be good at this.
Reality sets in quickly when the crying starts. Oh, in the hospital it’s “adorable.” At home, one quickly realizes it doesn’t stop and somehow it begins to sound anything but adorable. Along with countless dirty diapers, spit up, and a mound of other new surprises, parenting quickly surpasses the qualifications for sissies.
I suppose those first few weeks and months help you see something of who you really are. In many ways, you are just like that little baby boy in your arms: young, inexperienced, and in need of some growing up. At least that was the case for me. Oh, how much I had to learn! Now, eighteen years later, I still have so much to learn, but what a wondrous learning process it has been!
Today, I celebrate my first-born son’s eighteenth birthday. As cliche as it sounds, where has the time gone? Thisis a very real feeling. This day is one I have both anticipated with great expectation and dreaded ever since we first met on that chilly New England night in early October.
No, I can’t say it’s been easy or without its challenges. I don’t think any parent can honestly say that. Mercifully, time helps us forget the most challenging parts, or at least help us remember them a bit more opaquely than we might have in the moment, but all of it weaves together to make us into the wonderful tapestry that we become and, by God’s grace, we can smile. Today, I am smiling. It may be with a lump in my throat, but I am smiling.
I cannot tell you how proud of the young gentleman my son has, and continues to, become. I am not proud as one who has done the shaping, but as one who has had the privilege of watching him become shaped by the loving hands of my compassionate Father. For certain, He has used my wife and I as instruments, but all too often I feel God has done a mighty work in spite of us. Oh, how incapable of properly shaping little humans we are on our own!
I am proud because I have watched that little, strong-willed, blond-haired boy grow through the years into a young man who is smart, thoughtful, forgiving, and compassionate. I am so grateful to God because He has revealed to Jacob His Son, leading to Jacob’s deep relationship with Jesus that overflows and displays itself in his love and concern for others. He is becoming the godly leader I knew he could be, embracing God’s call on his life with vigor and determination, the latter being a quality God embedded in him at a very early age!
I suppose I could go on and on of my deep love and respect for this young man I will always call mine, but I think I can sum it up by saying that, in Jacob, I have seen a boy becoming the kind of man I prayed he would be. It is my prayer for him that God will keep him close and grow him into a mighty man of God through whom the Father will accomplish great things for His Kingdom. To Jacob, I wish you all the love, happiness, and blessing a grateful father can hope for!
