At the end of August, about a month after I decided to leave my job as a youth pastor, I came home to a handwritten note. Inside that note Alycia had written this:
“With so many changes going on in our life why not add one more? You are such a wonderful husband! You are going to be such a great daddy!”
Alycia thought she may have been pregnant and told me as much. She hadn’t confirmed it, though, until that moment.
And in that moment pretty much everything changed.
And when our baby girl is born at the end of April, I’m pretty sure everything is going to change again.
People wonder if getting pregnant was an accident, that it would be a bad idea to quit a job and then have a baby. Even though it wasn’t an ideal time, Alycia and I didn’t want to wait any longer before starting our family. We had placed our trust in God with me leaving my job, so we could continue to trust in him even if Alycia got pregnant.
People have also wondered why we waited so long to share anything on social media. It’s no secret that Alycia’s pregnant; in fact we told our entire youth group two weeks after we found out. She’s obviously very pregnant so we couldn’t hide it even if we wanted to.
As far as sharing her pregnancy on social media, though, we just weren’t that worried about it. A lot of people have gender reveal parties or plan a photo session in order to have just the right picture announcement for Facebook or Instagram. Alycia and I didn’t really think too much about any of that. We just sort of wanted our pregnancy to be our pregnancy; we wanted people to find out more organically.
However, that didn’t keep from making this image with a potential hashtag for our baby.
I didn’t really care that much about sharing anything on social media, but I was itching to write about being a father. This blog is first and foremost about the intersection of nerd culture and the Christian faith. Secondly, though, it’s really about my life and how nerd stuff and Christian stuff get all mixed up together. I’ve definitely thought a lot about how I’m going to help our daughter love Jesus. I’ve also thought a lot about how I’m going to help our daughter love Star Wars.
So hopefully you won’t mind if every so often I write about being an expectant father. I’m never going to have the experience of waiting for a first child again, and I’d love to document it and share it with you. If nothing else, those of you with children can tell me the appropriate age at which to show my daughter Star Wars.
I can’t wait to be a dad. Obviously everything is going to be different and I’ll have even less time to play video games and read comic books. But it will all be worth it to better understand God’s love for me and to help my daughter fully embrace God’s love for her.
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