Entry #3

"Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe.  But he's good.  He's the king, I tell you."

Mr. Beaver speaking of Aslan in chapter 8 of C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe".

My initial comment to Joy about the pregnancy was telling of my heart.   I have known tragedy.  The loss of my sister when I was 18 has been the most humbling sting of death that I have personally known.  But the death of friends, family members and mentors has been a theme woven into the fabric of my 28 years of life.  This strand of reality has dealt a poisonous sting that continues to fester long after tangible mourning was supposed to be over.

I would like to say the moment I saw my beautiful wife holding a home pregnancy test declaring that we were pregnant brought unequivocal joy to my heart.  It didn't.  I also wish that I could claim that my skepticism was a confidence and surrender to the Lord's will.  It wasn't.  I will always celebrate the gift of Padraig, but that moment proved to be the penhole that allowed a harsh light to glare down on my bitter heart.

As I had to sit with my response I have come to realize that somewhere in the past decade I decided that I wasn't going to get hurt anymore.  I was willing to be sad, depressed, angry but never was I going to enter into that moment of pain where darkness overcomes you and when the guttural cries from within are met by the devastating reality that there are no tears big enough and no sobs violent enough to express much less ease the pain.

Only in retrospect can I understand how this slow strangling of my soul had affected the entirety of my life.  I could see beauty, but only as a dim reflection.  I could know love, but only from a threshold that I was not willing to walk through.  My dearest attitudes and emotions were cynicism, bitterness and rage.  My relationship with Joy, my closest friend, was only a shell of what God intended it to be.  I was hurting and lonely.

Our first visit to the doctor forced me upon threshold of reality and introspection.  We heard the heart beat and saw the arm buds that were to form the 6lb 12 oz boy to be named Padraig. I had a choice to make and it is one that I was going to push away for months.  But I truly believe that it was at the moment that I started to hear the Divine Whisper, "Do you trust me? Do you believe that I am both sovereign and good?"