So my little Alaina Joy just turned two. I remember the night she first came into the world and joined our blessed family. Being a parent is difficult. Anyone who is a parent would agree 1,000%. The idea of being parent is difficult for most people. Even when I was single I could understand in the abstract that being a parent would be extremely difficult and an endeavor I wanted to postpone as long as humanly possible. However, inevitability arrived a few short years after I got married to my beautiful wife. My motto of "avoiding responsibility" was completely and utterly obliterated. There is no avoiding it once you have children.
You see I've viewed, for much of my life, children as a necessary evil. It was a joyless "We have to have them because that's what people do" mentality. I even lazily attempted to find some goodness in having children but still ultimately viewed them as symbols of subjugation, restriction of leisure, and constraints towards happiness. I had a wife to take care of, a mortgage to pay, a lawn to mow, a dog to walk, and I was trying to start my own business. Where did having children fit into all of this?
I couldn't have been more wrong.
Good people in my life tried to tell me that being a parent is "character building." But character didn't matter to a self-absorbed idiot like myself. In my immaturity I thought "happiness" was "freedom from responsibility." That is a great lie the devil and the world tells every young person. Sadly, most of us buy into it and ultimately never truly grow up. Certainly there are people without children who are mature and godly. I'm talking about dismissing fatherhood as if it were banishment from "real freedom." In reality, I was hiding a deep seeded fear underneath this fake tough guy bravado. It was a fear that I might turn out to be like my dad (Summary: He wasn't around). It was masking my own feelings of inadequacies at being a father. Any type of major life change is scary to a child. And I was a child in fear of major change.
So what happened?
Parenting is embarrassing, exhilarating, and down right exhausting. It touches the entire emotional spectrum of the human soul and in so doing it awakens emotional senses within you and it expands your capacity for greater love. Like most things that happen in life, you either continue to avoid the responsibilities that have been given to you and fail or embrace them and thrive and watch yourself be transformed as the thing you dreaded (fatherhood) becomes the catalyst for greater heights of joy you never knew existed.
I love my children and I find joy in their joy. As a result, I learn to find joy in the joys of others, not just my own children. And when we truly "rejoice with those who rejoice" and experience it within community everyone shares in a joy inexpressible and unfading. I believe that's the way God designed a man to experience fatherhood. I've never been more affirmed in my manhood and my masculinity until I had the responsibility of taking care of a family, especially taking care of my children. I never thought that would be the case. But God clearly had other plans and I'm glad His plan always wins out.
Happy Birthday Alaina Joy! You are so dear to my heart and you've changed daddy's life forever. You motivate me to be a better man and a better father by your existence and just like your name you bring unspeakable joy to my life. I love you.
