I saw the baby today. Up until this point, the baby felt like an abstract concept. True, I felt great about being a dad and I wanted to do all I could to help my wife. She is starting to show a little and last night I even talked to the baby.

Still, I can’t describe the difference between the reality of our child before today and the reality now.

Our prayers have been answered thus far: ten fingers, ten toes. I saw each one. What a marvelous thing to see God knitting a life in my wife’s womb. It’s funny, I didn’t really hear the nurse go through the checklist of potential problems. I heard her happiness in sharing with us and I heard my wife’s joy and relief that the baby is okay.

Sometime later, what I am feeling is becoming more clear.

I am incredibly happy that I will be a father. It’s a word that always meant someone else to me, and now this word can be used to describe me as well. It’s not that I get to stand up on father’s day, or even that I can share stories with my own father. It’s the beginning of something new that at one point I thought would be denied to me for the rest of my life. Two years ago, I had given up on any hope of being a father and had given my heart into what I considered my ministry.

Having it become a reality now is another sign to me that God does hear my prayers. I wept in bitterness that I was living a life that was not my own. Now, God has given me a life that I know is His and mine. I understand that my life is on loan from him and that he could call me anywhere – he did it once before when I packed up my car and drove 2200 miles to a town where I knew no one at all. (My first night, I couldn’t even find a hotel room or a gas station to buy a town map.) In any case, I feel like God told me that I could make some choices and that he wouldn’t abandon me if I made a bad one. In the meantime, he hasn’t been like the God of the Deists that just watches from afar, He’s helped me along the way. Point is, I feel like God and I are walking together in my life instead of how I saw him before as the micromanager of my life.

My wife and I ask God to know His will. I hope that the choices we have made will honor Him. In the meantime, I am enjoying this special time to simply be in awe at the creation of life. A life entrusted to the care of me and my best friend. This is probably the happiest day of my life to this point and I wanted to share it.

God bless all of you today and everyday.