It's 3AM on Father's Day (Happy Father's Day, by the way) . Eli woke me up from a dead sleep for some ice water. Everyone is asleep now, including Eli - whom just took (A) sip, ( ONE) sip and went back to sleep. So here I am...AWAKE now.
I'm not upset though. I've played the role of night time care giver almost since he was born. I was the first one to get to hold him when he was born and that little bald, mucus covered kid melted my heart and I was hooked. I cried that cold early morning in January. I was so overcome with emotion. Eli was the the fulfillment of God's word to me.
(I have 4 step children and they are great and I love them dearly...I consider them my own and have sacrificed and provided for them as I have for Eli. But there is something different about your own. Maybe it's because you are there from the very beginning and they are part "you". Hmmm...)
Anyway,two years prior to the birth of Eli, I was praying one night at a special church service. As I was praying, a little boy ( Cody Campbell) was running around the church. I was distracted and started watching him. He was one of the first kids in my children's ministry and I loved him. I think he was 6 at the time and so full of life and energy. Cody was always telling me something about this or that - kid stories that grown ups sometimes miss the importance of ( and the point of). It was at that moment, while watching Cody, that I asked the Lord for a son like him. I remember it so clearly. I said, " Lord, I want a son like Cody one day" and the Lord responded that night to me and told me that I would have a son. I said, " Great, I'll name him Eli ( a name that I had loved for years prior to this moment. It was a name that Sherri and I had discussed and agreed on, should we ever have a child together) . And the Lord spoke to me again and told me that I could call him Eli, meaning " ascension", but that his name was to be Elisha, meaning " my God is salvation". I agreed ( I wasn't stupid! You don't argue with God...and win and/or live!!). The night ended very late and Sherri and I went home very tired and I didn't speak of the nights event. I figured I'd tell her in the morning. The next morning we woke up and Sherri and I were talking and she she told me that she had had the strangest dream. She said that in the dream, we had a little boy and she kept calling him...Eli, Eli, come here and he didn't respond. Then she said that the Lord had spoken in the dream and said that that wasn't his name.
It was here that I spoke up and revealed the name that the Lord had spoken to me. I said," No, his name is Elisha". Sherri asked me how I knew that because that was the name in her dream, so I told her about the night before.
Two years later, I was holding my promise. We had Eli at home and never had any ultrasounds, nothing like that. I just knew that we were having a boy and told everyone that we were having a boy and sure enough, that's what we had. At that moment, it is so overwhelming to see the fulfillment of what you have known and hoped for...and so the tears.
To me, it is one of the greatest gifts in life to be a dad...a father. There is so much responsibility to the job, if you are going to do it right, but the rewards far out weigh any sacrifice that I might make. I work with young people all the time that are ( or become) fathers, but they miss the opportunity of being a Dad. I feel sad for their loss and for the child's. It's a cycle of missing empty men that create boys that become missing empty men...able to create life, but unable to sustain and nurture it.
It's now 4:30AM and all is well. I'll try to get a little more sleep, but church will be here soon and I'll be up again...fulfilling another role of being a father!
