April 18, 2011

REFLECTIONS ON FATHERHOOD:
Sick and Fussy

No new parent likes the idea of their newborn child being sick. My son is 2 weeks old and sick. It sucks.

He has been keeping me up tonight because he is just not able to calm down. It is like he isn't comfortable in his own skin. Finally, I swaddled him up, and he has been fine since then (swaddling= permanent blanket hug).

At this point he isn't very aware of who I am (I don't entirely know if he knows what I am, or if I am a thing or just an image he sees occasionally). He does seem somewhat unaware of me sometimes, especially when he is suffering somehow (like being hungry). He gets so caught up in what he wants/needs that he becomes oblivious to how hard I am trying to help him.

This made me think about bit about God. A lot of times we have to deal with some troubling times: trials and suffering. God often feels distant at these times. The old theologians called it "The Dark Night of the Soul". David sings of it quite often. I remember often being told that God is there for me during those times, and having trouble believing it. I believe it anyway, but it just takes effort.

Now I kind of know the other side of that. Here I am, desperately trying to help my son, and he isn't very aware of me at all. His suffering blinds him to my presence as his discomfort overloads his nervous system. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to want to stop him from suffering, but just knowing that this is something he just simply has to work through. So I'm just there for him, holding him. Sometimes, that's all God is doing to: holding us as we go through those things that we just have to go through.

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