I can still remember vividly the days that both of our children were born. I was a typical young father. I didn’t really think I knew what I was doing. I certainly wasn’t prepared. I would imagine that no new parent is ever really prepared. We all do the best we can do and with a lot of on-the-job training, we somehow manage.
The day my daughter was born was especially scary since she was our first. My wife and I showed up at the hospital early in the morning. Off we went with the admission nurses on to get settled in our new “home” for the next several hours, our birthing room. There was nothing special about the room and I was so nervous that it really wouldn’t have mattered anyway. We could have been in the nicest Hotel and I would have still been just as nervous and anxious.
The birth was joyous and overwhelming with emotion. Mom and baby did fine. I was a proud, new Father, even though I didn’t have a clue what to do. The nurses would bring our daughter to our room for feedings and show us all the important things we would need to know when we got home. We would see her a few moments and off she would go back to the nursery. We spent a couple of uneventful days in the hospital and then it was time to check out and go home.
It was the day that we left the hospital that always has stood out in my mind.
As the Nurse helped my wife into a wheelchair, with our daughter, to roll them out to the emergency room exit of the hospital, I went ahead to the parking lot so I could drive our car to the emergency room entrance to meet them.
We helped my wife into the car and then the nurse handed our daughter to me so that I could place her in the car seat. As she handed our daughter to me, I’ll never forget that she said “she’s all in your hands now. Take good care of her.” It was at that moment that the awesome responsibility of parenthood hit me between the eyes. There weren’t going to be any nurses to help with feedings and diaper changes, or to simply ask questions when we weren’t sure. It was something about the way she said those words to me that made me realize that a new, young life was totally dependent upon me and my wife.
My daughter is an adult now raising her own family. I think back on the many, many mistakes I’ve made as a parent, but somehow we survived. I realize that she was in my hands for many years and now she has her own children that are in her hands.
As a Christian, it has always been a source of security for me to realize that I am always in God’s hands. I sometimes jokingly wonder if He sometimes thinks that he may have bitten off more than he could chew when I became one of His Children. But, then, I realize that my life is no surprise to him. There is nothing in my life that catches God unprepared. Our Heavenly Father is a confident Father and I often need to remember to remain confident in Him and that he never fails me, despite how I may have failed Him.
Are you in His Hands?
