Fatherhood Part 2

As I watched my daughter tonight, I couldn't help but wonder what was whirring through her little mind.  She was sitting in her highchair, her wide eyes a melting pot of fear, awe, and curiosity.  She watched me intently as I worked my way around the room, pushing my strange contraption in front of me. Her eyes bounced from me to the machine, back and forth, afraid to take her eyes off the machine but looking to me for some signal that everything was okay.  The machine's light was attractive enough to her, but it was the loud, almost deafening roar that it made which kept her glued to my activities, kept her curious and distant.  She would look away to eat, because food is always the priority, but she never seemed quite sure that everything was really okay, that the crazy contraption wouldn't jump out of my hand and come straight for her.  Tonight, I vacuumed.

I can only imagine what its like to be a baby, to be experiencing everything for the first time.  Oh, shes seen a vacuum before; yet every time is like a new cognitive experience for someone who is still learning the world.  She has no context, no way to understand what is happening around her, and it is that newness that piques her curiosity and tinges those beautiful eyes with fear.  She has no assurance that this new experience will be safe or will result in good things, other than the knowledge that whatever it is, its in daddy's hands.

As we get older, less and less of life is new.  So when something is new and unknown, our fear levels are even greater than a baby's.  The same life-experience context that allows us to understand most things allows us to think of all the ways something we don't understand could go wrong.  Our ability to reason fails us, and all we are left with is... faith.

As we continue to grow in our maturity, understanding, and spirituality, the new must come.  God will provide the new in order that we stretch and grow, becoming more and more like who He created us to be.  New opportunities and new challenges, new joys and new pains.  Like Ashlynn and the vacuum, sometimes we don't know if the new things we see and hear are good or bad, easy or dangerous. The unknown will crumble our reason to ruin, and all we will have left is... faith.

Faith in our own abilities to handle the new.  Faith in our loved ones to support and protect us.  Faith that this new thing is in Daddy's hands... and faith that that's enough.