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A Dad’s Love and Setting the Table
A Dad’s Love and Setting the Table
There is no amount of hyperbole to describe the most exhilarating, terrifying, momentous moment in my “Adult” life as I watched a woman I was once so nervous to kiss, now literally give her life for me, and more importantly, for six pounds fifteen ounces.
When you have a baby, toes, fingers, hair, hiccups, and yes even poop, all carry a weighty significance that is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
People always tell you that having a baby changes everything and you smile and say “I know” without any idea that when they say “everything,” they mean, well, everything.
Here are just a few words I now know that I didn’t know at all.
PRAYER—Something so holy and pious, done in respect and esteem in church pews, became something entirely different that night. 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 save ASAP.
BEAUTY—A word used for the front covers of magazines was anything but airbrushed 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 mud splattered on a windshield.
SLEEP—Something so plentiful, now a commodity rarer than finding gold in my backyard.
LOVE—The word most transformed of them all. How anemic was my understanding of love just days before.
LOVE OF MY WIFE
Standing with her in what must be the most helpless position a man could ever be in, offering nothing else but my hand and reminders to breathe, the roots of my love for my wife moved deeper and further into the ground.
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. And that my wife is one tough woman who is way, way stronger than me.
LOVE FOR THIS LITTLE GIRL
The intensity of this love became very clear to me when I found myself bawling the moment I saw her enter into the world. And also hours later when I found myself standing over her like a grizzly bear over its cub after a nurse had the audacity to prick her with a needle and make her cry.
LOVE OF A FATHER
As I drove home from the hospital, John Mark McMillan’s “How He Loves” echoed through my speakers, bringing with it another wave of tears (geesh, having kids makes you all soft and stuff).
My relationship with God has been up and down the last few years. Some days He feels like He’s sitting close to me on the couch. Other days He feels as warm as a frozen cod.
But as I came back from the hospital, I was overwhelmed with how profound God’s love must be for me. Feeling the impact of being a father for the first time, I caught a glimpse of what our relationship has been the whole time.
God’s love is not mere poetry. It is a tidal wave.
练习题
In the section, what does the narrator mean when he says that having a baby changes “everything”?
How does the narrator’s understanding of prayer change during the birth crisis?
Which statement best captures the contrast between “setting the table” and “enjoying the feast” in the quote about success in your twenties?
Which descriptions accurately reflect how the narrator’s definitions of familiar words change after his child is born?
Which events or realizations show that love is transformed by parenthood in the passage?
True or false: The narrator presents beauty as something more honest and powerful in the messy reality of birth than in airbrushed magazine images.
True or false: The narrator’s experience of childbirth makes him feel less love for his wife because he feels helpless during the process.
The narrator concludes, “God’s love is not mere poetry. It is a ___.”
How does the narrator’s immediate reaction to his daughter show the protective nature of parental love?
Explain how the “setting the table” quote connects with the earlier idea that people should not pursue dreams alone.
Which statement best connects the author’s description of prayer during childbirth with the earlier discussion of prayer in the struggle against social media validation?
Which choices accurately combine the idea that success in your twenties is about “setting the table” with earlier advice about pursuing dreams?
The author’s claim that fatherhood gave him a glimpse of God’s profound love fits with the earlier idea that identity and worth can be grounded in something deeper than online popularity.
In both the childbirth scene and the earlier discussion of social media anxiety, the author moves away from self-sufficiency toward ___ as a response to fear, insecurity, and need.
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