In the Blink of an Eye

It has been one week since my daughter was born.  It is funny how much can change in the blink of an eye.  I can’t even begin to fully describe it but my life has forever changed.  Yeah that is a pretty “no duh” statement but I needed to say it.  Why?  Well while Mary Beth was pregnant everyone kept telling me that my life was about to change.  Every single one of my friends who has children has told me numerous times that it changes you and turns your world upside down.  The thing was I completely believed them.  Not believing them wasn’t the issue.  The fact of the matter is that you can kind of get it, you can prepare for it in different ways but you don’t ever fully get it until that little bundle of joy actually arrives. 

 On Tuesday I went to work out for the first time since Sophia arrived.  I got on the treadmill and as I was running thought to myself, “The last time I was here Sophia wasn’t born yet.  Wow!  I know it has only been 4 days since the last time I was here but it feels like a lifetime ago.”  All of a sudden my world pre-Sophia began to feel like a very distant memory.  A smile came to my face.  Everything in my life leading up to this point had been wonderful but from here on out I knew I never wanted to go back.  I never wanted to know what life was like without Sophia in it again.  It is crazy how quickly that feeling sets in. 

 God has molded me in very different ways throughout every part of my life.  In my childhood he showed me His great love through the presence of my family.  In High School he started re-building self-confidence in me I had somehow lost along the way and brought me to an encounter with my faith that started the journey I’m on today.  In college he affirmed my manhood and brought a lot of healing to my life through the amazing brotherhood I had with my household and gave me a deep and abiding love for His Church. In my first years of teaching He showed me how to grow in patience, trust, and instilled deeper virtue within me.   Through my years in graduate school God showed me true abandonment to divine providence.  He stripped me of my desire and need to always be in control and showed me how to rely on nothing except for Him.  It was in this moment of finally relinquishing control that He brought Mary Beth into my life.  Through our time of engagement and first year back to teaching in Wichita God continued to prepare me for this moment as He showed me how to love even when it was difficult.  He showed me what it means to truly enter into the covenant of marriage.  Throughout our first year of marriage God showered us with many graces and taught us how to love one another more profoundly and work on our relationship.  I firmly believe that every one of those moments and times in my life have been moments of grace to prepare me to be a father.  I am not fully aware of the ways God is going to continue to shape and mold me throughout this experience of being a father but I have a feeling it will be full of joy, excitement, happiness, heartache, pain, and sheer bliss.  I am excited to see where life takes our little family from here.

Last night Sophia slept soundly on my lap and as Mary Beth slept next to me on the couch as we watched Harry Potter.  It was a very surreal moment for me as I thought to myself that a week ago I didn’t even know what Sophia looked like.  I sat there thinking that within a couple years or even sooner she will be too big to sleep on my lap.  However the most amazing yet difficult thing to swallow is that I am responsible for her eternal soul! Not only that, God used me and my wife to help bring this new eternal soul into being.  This to me is so humbling and awesome that I don’t know if my mind will ever be able to fully wrap itself around it. 

I am in love with my little girl.  I am in love with my wife.  I am in love with my life.  The last week has been hard in the sense that I no longer have my old routine and don’t think I’ll ever get it back.  I am going to have to start figuring out a new routine and even that will be one that has to be much more flexible than the old one cause as I’ve already learned in the last week, kids are unpredictable!  However anything worth it in this life is hard and if this is what hard is then I will take it any day of the week!