Love Like a Hurricane

Let it be noted today that my life has forever changed. Toes, fingers, hair, hiccups, and yes even poop, all carry a weighty significance to it that I have never experienced before. In an exhilarating, terrifyingly, momentous moment in time, six pounds eleven ounces came into my life and forever smashed any and all misconceptions about the way things are, and forever more will be. Everyone always tells you that life will never be the same and you smile and say “I know” without any idea how completely this cliché phrase wrapped in diapers will rock your world.

She is my wife’s and my first, if you couldn’t already tell from the surprise in my voice that a little baby could change you so much. But two days and five hours of sleep later, Webster’s Dictionary seems to have gone up in flames as simple words now have completely new definitions.

PRAYER – something so holy and pious before, done in respect and esteem to the Lord, became something entirely different at 4:00 am when all I could see was blood and all I could hear was “heart rate dropping” and “umbilical cord wrapped around neck”. Prayer became a violent shout for help – a plea of desperation and expectation, not just for God to listen but for God to show up and act ASAP.

BEAUTIFUL – a word used for front covers of magazines was anything but air brushed as that first sign of baby became my truest definition of the word. The huddled, shivering, and crying mess covered in embryonic residue made the supermodel on a magazine cover look like a 1st grade crayon painting.

LOVE – the word most transformed of them all. How anemic was my understanding of love just three days before.
First, what it means to love my wife. Standing with her in what felt like the most helpless position of all time, offering nothing else but my hand and reminders to breathe, wishing nothing more than to ease her pain, the roots of my love for her moved deeper and further into the ground than I ever could have imagined. As a young couple dating years ago, professing our love in romantic bliss we had no idea what that word truly meant. I caught a glimpse of it that night.

Then my love for this little girl. The intensity of this love became very clear to me when I found myself standing over her, holding myself back from escorting the nurse out of the room who had the audacity to prick her with a needle and make her cry. Like a Grizzly bear standing over his cub, anything, I mean anything that wants to harm her is going to have go through me first.

Then another definition of love changed as I drove home from the hospital, John Mark McMillan’s “How He Loves” echoing through my speakers, bringing with it a flood of tears. The same song that I had listened to hours before as we drove to the hospital, now overwhelmed me with how profound and fierce God’s love is for me. Feeling the impact of being a father for the first time I caught a glimpse of what it must be like for him. His love is not mere poetry. It is a hurricane.

So I write this for many reasons a changed man. Join me and swim out into the fierceness and depth of God’s love and let the waves overtake you. They have me – and my life will never be the same.

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