A baby can change everything

We just finished a great week here with our oldest son Adam and his wife Shonda. I really hated to see them leave. Over the years Bunny and I have become more aware than ever of just what family means and how precious these times when we get together truly are. I miss them already, but I'm glad they got back to Georgia safe and sound.

Yesterday was Adam's birthday anniversary. His birthday happened on August 11th, 1978 in Macon, Georgia.

Adam changed everything.

Sure I had thought about being a father - had always thought I'd be one - but on that day when Bunny and Adam rolled out of the delivery room - I was his Daddy.

I didn't feel up to it at first. I mean that yes it had happened, but I had to grow into the job.

I went back to my job and it wasn't good enough - now that I had a family to care for. That began my real effort to progress in my job. It caused both Bunny and me to look at our priorities and decide that we were going to give Adam (and later Sean) everything we could give them to help them have every chance to succeed as they grew up.

Decisions began coming at us that would have never happened before. Adam was being cared for by a private day care person. One day early in he had a scratch on him that we didn't get a good explanation for. We decided to take the ridiculous step of having Bunny quit work and stay home - which she did until both boys were well on their way in school. With the boys grandparents we placed both boys in private school to give them that head start. I returned to college to get the degree that I should have had before Adam was born.

Time and time again we prayed for wisdom and acted on what we believed God would have us do.

I looked at Adam yesterday and saw a great husband, a good man who tries to do the right thing in every situation. Around the first of the year we believe he'll get the same shock I got when he holds his son or daughter in his arms. The difference is that he's been through fires I never had to go through, survived them, and he's taking the right steps way before I did. He's returning to college this fall to get a degree that will mean a lot to his family going forward.

I could not be more proud of him.  I have been so blessed with an awesome wife and two great sons.

But today I'm remembering the baby that changed everything.

Way Over My Head

And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. 9 My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Gal 3:8-9 (MSG)

Like Paul, I know I am in way over my head. But I also know that God loves me and has chosen me to do this work of telling His story. So I watch and listen.

I was rearranging my office thursday and picked up a wooden plaque dated 1981. On it rested a hand print of one Adam Wilson, my first born son. It was so small. The writing on the plaque was some of that sentimental stuff about looking back at kids when they grow up. Uh yeah. Wouldn't want to do that. I'd be one of those saps, huh.

When Adam came into this world, I had no clue what being his daddy would mean. I wasn't just in over my head, I was clueless. All I could do is look at him and wonder what in the world am I supposed to do now?

I thought back to a baby lying in a yellow inflatable "tub" so we could bathe him. To a little boy who followed his daddy around. To a young man who I played basketball with. Then I thought about times when we worried over him - when he was sick, when those first days of school came, when we left to come down here and he didn't come with us. There were times of great joy - he was an awesome boy, and there have been times of sadness. Yet he has grown up and is a man anyone would be proud to call his son.

Yes, looking at that hand print made me think of God's grace - His love, and His mercy.

For through it all, even before Adam was born, God knew him, and He knew Bunny and me. We'll never know the extent of how God blessed us with His providential care. A lot of things could have gone wrong. An awful lot of things went right. In that boy, now a man, I got to watch God's work and have a part in it.

"And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ."

Well, sometimes they aren't over your head. I've got a hand print on a plaque to prove it.