Some thoughts from L&D

As is sit here with my wife in the labor and delivery unit, I've got all kinds of things in my mind... I'm happy, excited, nervous, elated, expectant... You get the idea.

All of that is reasonable and expected, but I've got some other things on my mind, as well... 

Today, in just a few hours, in this little room with the most homey hospital decorations you'll ever see, heaven and earth will meet in a beautifully chaotic collision of the cosmos. In a little while, a new human being will breathe in, for the first time, the atmosphere of this earth. His tiny little eyes will be awakened. His little hands, with fingernails so small they look like they couldn't possibly be real, will grasp my fingers for the first time...getting a start on the day he will hold my hand. This sweet little boy will begin his conscious journey toward eternity.

What will those hands touch? What will they provide to another in need? What will those little eyes see? How many tears will they yield out of compassion for another in his pain? What encouraging words will be propelled forth from his mouth by those little lungs that will surely display their power with that first cry?

It feels like I'm standing at the edge of eternity, dangling by the thin air of a first breath and the threads of a sound uttered for the first time by newly-inflated lungs. 

When I finally get to look on the face of my new baby boy today, I will look on the face of our God. There's no closer experience, I'm convinced, in this life to being before the LORD of heaven and earth...the maker of all things, than to be there to touch, to hold, to feel, to hear, to look upon a fresh soul, as yet, unharmed by the world.  Alas, there is no more sobering thought than to know that the greatest thing can possibly happen in his life will be his death, both spiritual and physical, that he can be fully redeemed and re-created, to spend eternity in the presence of a loving God...and that's an eternity I have every intention of experiencing with all of my family...and a responsibility I must accept...that I will fight, tooth and nail, to help him become the man God desires him to be. That he will be an agent of God's redemption in a world full of evil, a light in a dark place, a man, of whom, people will say we are all better off because of his presence in our lives.