Hard to Write About

So Jack has been here a little over a week now. He's our first. Since his birth I've sat down with my journal a dozen different times to try to chronicle what life has been like since his arrival, only to find my brain speeding off in a million different directions. I've still written nothing in my journal. 

Finally, a couple of nights ago, Loanne and I had a long talk about all of the things I'm having a hard time writing about. For the first time, maybe in my life, it came out more easily in speech than on paper.

Because it's not easy, for example, to write about how witnessing Loanne's unfortunate delivery (things didn't go well) and the violence it did her has made me appreciate Christ's sacrifice in new ways, for now I've seen before my eyes someone suffering for my sake—and, in this case, my son's. 

Neither is it easy to write about how this sacrificial suffering on her part has unexpectedly made me love her more than I ever have, in the same way my love for Jesus finally became real when I realized his suffering for me. 

It's not easy to write about the new (if still imperfect) understanding I have of God's love for me, because I now know a new kind of love for my own son. It's hard to describe the relief I feel in knowing that the violently protective, empathetic love I feel toward Jack—when his little stomach aches and he cries, my heart breaks, and I would do anything to take that pain away—that same love, God feels toward me.

It's not easy to write about the new convictions this has brought, especially at 3 a.m. when all I want to do is sleep and I get frustrated with this little screaming machine, because I remember how patient and caring God has been for me at my most purposefully infuriating.

It's not easy to write about the effect it had on me when Loanne, holding Jack while breastfeeding, looked down at him and said, "Can you believe that Jesus came like this?" And the thought that came on the heels of that: Can you believe God gave his own baby boy away to be slaughtered for you?

It was easier to talk to my wife about all those things, and it was a talk I think I'll remember for the rest of my life.