A Father Gives All

My wife and I have come to realize that we are on our son's schedule. We both valued sleep, but have put our value aside because our son values eating! Now any father already knows what I am learning now, and that's getting up in the wee hours of the morning isn't fun. Being the grouch that I am in those early hours, I find myself huffing and puffing at the simple task of heating up a bottle or changing a diaper. Well, last night The Father got to me. As quick as a blink of an eye He showed me that a father gives all of himself. I whispered in my sons ear that I was sorry for being frustrated while tired and that I will give all of myself to him because of my love for him. The comforts I once valued take second when it comes to the son I love.

Our Heavenly Father gave and continues to give to us all that He is. While resting in His arms He is giving His complete self to us. He gives His time (not that He's bound by it), His energy, His love and all that He is simply because He loves us. Is there any doubt as to why He tells us to come to Him as little children? Before we could ever truly know what love is, He displayed it for us...


1Jn 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

A child born into this world doesn't know how to love. Eat, sleep, poop, and cry a child comes prepared to do. A child learns love by the display of love that is around him/her. As I held my son at 3am early this morning, I couldn't help but to feel convicted for loving myself to the point of frustration. A father gives his all... everything he is and has. Looking down at my son and seeing the contentment on his face for being in my arms at 3am was a lesson well learned.

Let's face it... We don't know how to properly love God, yet when we see His love for us it pulls us into a love we have never known. We love because He first loved us. (1Jn 4:19). Now as our children grow up we must remember that we are the first display of love that they see in the morning and the last before they go to bed at night. As the Father continues to reveal His awesome love for us as His sons, so we can let that love flow out of us and into our children.

Gv's Gastro Testimony

Our son was born with Gastroschisis. That is where part of the bowel is on the outside. The doctors told us to be prepared for our son to be in the hospital for 2 months at best. We prayed diligently for God to dumbfound the doctors. God lead us to Psalm 139 and spoke to our hearts that He doesn't miss a stitch by accident. 13 days after George was born he was released from the N.I.C.U. The surgeon said in all his years he had not seen a child recover quite like ours! Sounds pretty dumbfounded to us. Gv is home now and doing well. Thanks to all who prayed with us, God is faithful.

Spiritual Arrhythmia

Arrhythmia. When the heart goes either faster or slower than it should. Now I am not in the medical field so bare with me. An arrhythmia is when the heart beats irregularly. This isn't moments of excitement or rest. The heart just doesn't beat as it should. The doctors have medical answers for these arrhythmia, but what about our spiritual arrhythmia? What does your spiritual heartbeat sound like? A fast heartbeat where you trying to do "For" God? What about a slow heartbeat where the status quo is good enough for you? Now think about what a heartbeat lined up with the Father's might sound like.

John chapter 15 sounds like the Father's heartbeat to me. He says that if we abide in Him we will bare much fruit and that if we don't abide in Him we can do nothing. If we abide in Him, we can ask and it shall be done. Now think about that one... when we abide in Him we know His heartbeat and therefore our heartbeat lines up with His. The Lord offers us to abide in His love. Then He hits us with the rhythm in the following verses;

12 This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you. 13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

The Father's Heartbeat, Love him with all you have and Love others as He has loved you... WITH ALL HE HAS!

My son sits with his head on my chest and listens to my heartbeat. He knows the rhythm of his fathers heart. What will he learn about his fathers spiritual heart condition as he grows and watches his father. I want my son to know and see that the heartbeat of my Heavenly Father is how I regulate my spiritual condition. Does my love for God and others show? Is it nothing but show? Is it complacent? Or does it radiate the presence of a God who invites us to abide in His love? I pray and hope the latter, so should you.

S.I.C.U.

Walking into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (or N.I.C.U.) for the first time was an overwhelming experience. My son was not yet born and we were on a "Walk through" tour. Babies crying, alarms going off, and nurses all around. It was enough for an anxiety attack! Our son was coming to this unit and it didn't sit very well with me or my wife. Intensive care for adults is one thing, but for babies?

When our son was born and came to the N.I.C.U. our perspective began to change. We quickly saw that this was the very best place for him. The nurses are one to every two to three babies and are very attentive. They keep us informed and at ease. We truly felt that the Lord has placed our son there for the specific care that he needs.

One day I look up and see this odd machine. Come to find out, it is the machine that is feeding my son. He can't eat milk yet so he gets feed intravenously. The Lord spoke quickly to my heart. "I am like this feeding machine". What? As I listened He showed me that this machine gives my son just the right amount of nourishment to keep him healthy and stable.There are a lot of things God could do to show me about His love for us, yet He chose this machine.

Many times in our lives when we feel like we have just under went some kind of "surgery" God is there to nourish us back to health with just the right amount of Him that makes us whole. There still might be issues, circumstances and we can even feel as if we are in some sort of "Spiritual Intensive Care Unit" (or S.I.C.U.), but to know that God is our nourishment makes all the issues... well... moot I suppose.

Paul had an issue. He called it a "thorn in his flesh". Many debate over what this could have been, but it really doesn't matter. What matters is what God told Paul the solution was.

2Cor. 12:9

9And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

In context, Paul is dealing with something that kept his boast on Christ. God's grace is sufficient for us every time we need it. (which is always:) God knew we would end up in "S.I.C.U." 's of life so He provide His Son as life. Christ is the very life that is poured into us as God knows best. Not that we need more of Christ (because we don't), but in those times we "feel" we do... it is then that we need to hear God say; "My Grace is Sufficient for you". He is the Provider of our nourishment and is always on time with what we need to recover from death to life.