My wife Lynne and I had anxiously awaited “the call” as we anticipated our grandson’s arrival. It came via a text from my daughter in Morehead City, North Carolina, late on a Friday afternoon. She had gone to the hospital but wrote, “Don’t worry! I will probably be here a long time.”
Still, I tried to step it up through Nashville traffic after leaving the Free Will Baptist offices in Antioch to head toward Hendersonville, just north of Nashville. Lynne was there, finishing up class with her students. We received a second text: “Feel free to come when you can.” That meant really step it up. We packed quickly and began the 675-mile journey.
As we drove toward Eastern North Carolina throughout the night, it was a bad feeling to know the earliest we would arrive would be 7:00 a.m. We were very excited but also a little worried. Our son-in-law Caleb did a great job keeping us up to speed on what was happening. First, he texted “Mackenzie is doing wonderful” and “A baby should be here soon.” So, encouraging!
At 2:30 a.m., he told us the baby had arrived. We were excited, but then we started wondering, “What was his Apgar score? Was he okay?” As though Caleb could hear our anxious thoughts, he texted a picture. Once we saw the picture, all our worries melted away.
When we finally arrived and saw Jameson for the first time, I thought: “This is what life is about.” Those were the words Lynne’s late father uttered when he saw Mackenzie for the first time.
Life is about babies. There is no denying this little life was “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) by the hands of God (Job 10:8-12).
Life is about families. Jeremiah told the exiles of his day to build and plant (Jeremiah 29:5), get married, have children, pray, and try to bring peace to their community (Jeremiah 29:6-7).
Life is about churches coming around families, helping new parents acclimate to their roles while helping disciple children (Titus 2). How fitting that one of the first to bring food to the family was our friend Gaye. A single lady, Gaye is an integral part of Caleb and Mackenzie’s life. It is also fitting that one of Jameson’s first outings was the teen church activity. He loved it, though he did seem a bit tired afterward (see picture at left).
In a world upside down in its values and priorities, life — babies, families, churches — are living object lessons about what really matters. When you see them, it is as though God is whispering, “This is what life is about.”
