A Holy Groan

Hello...It's Blake. I'm not sure this whole fatherhood thing has really hit me yet...i'm not sure it will any time soon. Right now with Lilly it's a lot of precious holding, feeding, burping, not so precious poopy diaper changes, etc. Somehow in the midst of all of this, God finds ways to teach me about aspects of himself, about his character, and about his word. They pop up at random, sometimes during the hectic moments and sometimes in the quiet times. I have been humbled over the past 8 weeks by God's revelations.

Take this example. Lilly has really turned into a huge grunter/groaner...no, not the respiratory distress/autoPEEP type of grunting (shout out to all my colleagues) but simply a gutteral, back of the throat vocalization that emerges at different times. I think she get's it from me because I recognize this sound coming from myself with 2am calls from nurses asking for an inpatient order, or from obese people who won't walk down a single flight of stairs and so make the elevator stop at every floor on the way down...I digress. Seriously, it is a cute sound that she makes whenever she is uncomfortable, is getting hot or cold, or just wants some attention (aka, somebody to hold her). After a few minutes of these groans, she will get really serious and just start wailing (see obligatory blog picture post below!) I started thinking about these grunts and it reminded me of Romans 8:26, "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."

This was not-so-much a groan as a full blown scream...How cute are her bunny slippers?!?

Lilly knows when she needs something from me. Although she cannot express these needs yet with words, her groans do the job. In the same way, I know that with all things fatherhood and life, I struggle to know what to pray for. Especially when I consider my daughter and all things surrounding her, I get overwhelmed. Her physical safety, her emotional needs, her self esteem, how to respond when other kids are mean to her (jaclyn told me that physical harm is both non-christian and illegal..shame), how to show her God's Love, not to mention all the things that I haven't even thought about yet. It is good to know that the Holy Spirit knows all these things, that the Spirit takes over and that with a groan, an intensely emotional cry for help, presents them to the Father.

That is when God really gives me an insight into Himself. When Lilly starts her groans, all I want to do is to make them stop, to let her know that I am here and to show her that all is well. I will literally do anything in my power to help her. I know that our Heavenly Father is the same way. One prayer as Jaclyn and I continue this journey that is parenthood is that God would continue to teach us in ways such as this.