Dear Phil,
My wife is due in a month, and I'm a little frightened. No, I'm a lot frightened. Friends of ours had their first child a year ago and they've hardly slept since. They think he's the cutest little guy on earth. I think he looks like ET. He requires more maintenance than their pickup truck, and he's already made a serious dent in their savings account. What can I do to prepare for fatherhood? Please answer — and please hurry.
— Sleepless in Saskatchewan
Dear Sleepless,
Congratulations! You are about to be welcomed into the Guys Who Can't Believe We're Dads Club. When I was your age fatherhood was the farthest thing from my mind. But four years later my wonderful wife stood before me in some rather expensive lingerie and said, “Honey, let's have kids — tons of them.” And it sounded like a good idea at the time. Eight months later I found myself in prenatal class — learning how to breathe, watching R-rated films and holding a tennis ball. “Rub her back with this in the delivery room,” said the instructor. “It will provide peace and serenity, a sense of oneness with each other and the universe.”
May 31, 1986 was a Saturday. My friends played softball that day. I paced a hospital hallway with my wife. Or at least I think it was my wife. But whereas Ramona had always been rather sweet and soft-spoken, this woman was more like Attila the Hun in a hospital gown.
“RUB MY BACK!” she commanded.I pulled out the ball.
“DON'T TOUCH ME!” she hollered.
This continued for what seemed like 14 days — until I found myself face-to-face with the first miracle I'd ever witnessed: my firstborn son. Sure he was a little wrinkly, but who could blame him? I held him close. I touched his tiny fingers and counted his toes — all 10 of them. I looked into his eyes. They were blue like mine. “Stephen,” said my wife with the widest smile I'd ever seen.
And then the most amazing thing happened. A revival, I suppose.
As I looked into those blue eyes, it was as if I heard these words: “Callaway, for the first 25 years of your life you've been a hypocrite. You've been close to the church but far from God. You are holding in your arms the one person you'll never be able to hide it from. If you think this little guy won't see it, you're naive. If you think this little guy won't learn from what he sees, think again.”
People ask me when I became a Christian. I say May 31, 1986. You see, that night, for the first time in my life, I bowed my head and said, “Dear God, I'm sorry. Make me real. I want my precious little boy to hunger and thirst after righteousness. I want him to love Jesus with everything he's got. If he won't learn to from me, he has two strikes against him already.”
And I meant every word.
It's been slow going sometimes, but I believe God heard that prayer. Five years later this same little boy looked up at me one night and said, “Daddy, I wanna be like you,” and tears came to my eyes.
I don't have all the child-rearing answers for you, Sleepless. But I do know this: If you want your child to love God, you love Him first. If you want your son to obey, be obedient to the still small voice of God. And if you want your life to be changed forever, have children. Tons of them.
