Overwhelmed in the Waiting Room

Yesterday, I spent some time in a hospital waiting room with a new dad. His baby boy came a full month early — it was a full moon — and while the little fellow is going to be okay, the anxiety of the event combined with the lack of sleep, concerns for his wife (she’s fine, too), and the overwhelmingness of being a new dad brought him to tears. Then laughter. Then back to tears. At one point, he looked up and said, “I never realized how much God loved me until right now.” Then he started crying again.

Last week, I welcomed a phone call from my older son. He and his sweet wife are about eight weeks away from their due date, which is really beside the point. The main thing is that I and my sweet wife are about eight weeks away from being grandparents. I have every intention of being that grandparent — the one who shows you pictures of his sainted grandchild, the one who regales you with stories of his many proficiencies, excellencies and accomplishments. I also intend to match my legendary parental strictness with grand-parental permissiveness. After his first grandchild was born recently, a friend of mine told his son-in-law, “You better be a strict father, because every time that little girl calls me, the answer is ‘Yes!'” I’m tearing a page from that playbook.

Anyway, back to my son’s phone call. He just wanted tell me that when he woke up that morning, he rolled over to hug his wife and felt the baby kicking. His voice cracked when he related that momentary miracle. He said he couldn’t wait to hold his son and that he was just overwhelmed with feelings he’d never had before.

Both the new dad I spent time with yesterday and my son are typical men. They know stuff about guns and tanks and trucks and wiring and shingles. They work and play hard, they laugh loudly, cry infrequently, and are capable of the most onerous sounds and smells known to humankind. (Their fathers taught them well). But in the presence of new life, just out of or still in the womb, they melt. Even in all their rough hewn, Southern maleness, they recognize the sacred when they see it. Or feel it kicking in its mother’s belly.

Two things occur to me just here: How unlike the people we’ve seen in the news recently who discuss the price of baby parts over salad and wine, who camouflage human dissection behind cold medical jargon or marketing terms like volume, margin and profit. To these two young fathers (and millions more around the planet), the children they’ve helped conceive are priceless treasures and parables of the Father’s love.

Which is the second thing: The Father’s love for his children. One of the reasons my friend, the new father, was overwhelmed in the waiting room was because of the indescribable love he had for his newborn son. Then, he realized that if he, a sinner, has that kind of love for his child, how much more does God love him. When you sit down at Sunday church today, think about that — whether you have children or not. God loves you more than you will ever know. No matter what you’ve done or who you’ve become or how far away you’ve wandered. He loves you so much it hurts. In fact, it killed him. But he lives again and loves forever.