The Road Never Traveled
When you’re single, everyone asks you if there’s someone special you’re interested in. When you’re finally dating they constantly ask you when you’re going to get married. Not one week removed from your honeymoon, people begin to ask you when you plan on having kids. Until you finally have a kid, everyone is constantly bombarding you with questions. You may even be the subject of a few pregnancy rumors in different circles that you have to dispel. I know for my wife, Grace, and I, this has definitely been the case.
The expansion of your family beyond two isn’t just a question for outsiders. It is the natural progression of conversation amongst spouses. The longer you are married and more comfortable you become with this very new dynamic, the more the conversation becomes a relevant and necessary topic for discussion. Not that you don’t talk about it while dating and during marriage counseling, but all of that feels like prelude to the real deal. Once you’re married it’s game time and things start to really count. It’s like the stakes just got raised 1,000 and you’re sweating. And last year as Grace and I moved closer to one year of marriage, the conversation about kids naturally began to become a much more serious discussion.
I must confess, I have had many more hesitations than Grace about expanding our family. Whatever delay I advocated for stemmed from personal demons that I was wrestling with masked in a heavy coating of sensible pragmatism. So, through many painful and sometimes contentious conversations we began to walk through when we would have kids. In October of 2014, once I had come around, we decided to enter into the process of adoption. We were unified in this move and very excited about what God would do in our lives. Yet, in the back of my mind I still had this titanic sized knot shackling me from being able to wholeheartedly embrace the prospect of fatherhood. The question was, “Why?”
So let’s get a little real and personal here… If I were to be really honest, I have no idea what I’m doing. I was raised in a fatherless, single-parent home. My dad abandoned us for other women when I was around 18 months. My mother waited patiently for the prodigal husband to return only to have resolution by way of widow some 12 1/2 years later. When people talk about biblical manhood, I’m not sure that I even know what they’re really getting at. When people compliment me for displaying some form of manhood or I’m credited with some glimmer of manly righteousness, I graciously accept with humility; then walk away with confusion cause I didn’t know I was doing “it”.
See, I never saw what “it” was. I did not have “it” in the home. All I got was glimpses of the “it” within the walls of someone else’s home because they were gracious enough to allow me to come in from time to time. But, I never fell asleep seeing it. I couldn’t touch it. It never held me and rocked me to sleep. It never taught me how to throw a football. It didn’t teach me how to play sports, how to ride a bike, how to tie my shoes, how to walk with integrity, what to do when you like a girl, or any of the things that I saw other father’s do. Father’s day was always a loss to me. Let’s celebrate that mythical role of father, which as far as I was concerned, was in the realm of unicorns, leprechauns, Santa, and elves. It was not real, just an intangible, abstract concept or dream that seemed real for others, but would never be a dream come true for me.
How can I be a good father? How can I show my kids what it is to be a man? How can I be a godly man and pass that spiritual heritage down to my children? These questions have haunted me for the better part of the last 15 years as dating led to thoughts of marriage and subsequent children. I mean if dating leads to marriage, then one should embrace the notion of kids in embracing marriage. All of this was manifesting itself into long stressful nights. I have always wanted to be a father, but the reality was clothed in fear.
At times, all of this still weighs on me, yet I have found peace and comfort over the past year in these words,
“That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:19-21 ESV
See, I find encouragement in two truths: First, Christ has already done the work of reconciling me to himself. Our Pastor, Jonathan Williams, always says, “The gospel isn’t just for the lost. It’s also for believers.” At every moment that I doubt God’s work in the future, I have to remind myself of what he has already done. I have been washed, and as Isaiah would remind us, though my sins were scarlet He has made them white as snow. I often look at myself through the lens of the failures that Christ has already atoned for. I view my potential based on the failed potential of my father. Yet, I must never cease to reflect on the magnitude of Christ’s work on the cross. The blood of Jesus still works, still saves, still atones, and still has power.
Secondly, the righteousness that I walk in is Christ’s. In formal theological circles we use the term “imputed righteousness” to describe v 21. And imputed righteousness is what I am leaning on for fatherhood. If I am a Godly man, it is because Christ’s righteousness has been imputed in me and he is making his appeal through me. If that is my perspective, then I no longer have to fear. Once again, the blood of Jesus still has power. God works perfectly through imperfect people.
In conclusion, all of this has been what God has been trying to prepare me for. Why? Because his plans are not my plans and on January 31 Grace revealed to me that she was pregnant. What a shocker! So, many emotions have gone through me over the last month as we’ve contemplated this reality. But, I’m encouraged by what a dear family friend that’s way more like family than friend (De’ette Sauer) said to me when I told her the big news, “Mac, you have two opportunities in life to have a godly family. There’s the one that you’re born into. But, if you’re like me and weren’t raised with a godly example, there’s the one you get to create.” I am grateful for my mother and grandmother who constantly pointed me to Christ; who supplied everything that they lacked. I am also so glad that through Christ, I have an assurance of Christ working in me and through me, for my family. Every night before I go to sleep I touch Grace’s stomach and pray for our child. I am confident that through Christ, he will show me how to travel down the road I’ve never seen.
