I don’t get nervous easily. Sure, there was that time in 5th grade when I threw dirt clumps on the newly-paved church basketball court… and nearly got caught. I’ll admit, that one made me nervous. And when speaking to nearly 2,000 doctors, I once had to use the super-secret, public-speaking technique of picturing the entire audience sitting in their underwear (I may need therapy someday to cleanse that image from memory) to quell my nerves. But generally, I don’t get nervous. I’ve always been that cool, calm and collected guy who never gets flustered.
This is different, though. My new daughter arrives home from Ukraine tomorrow, and I am nervous. What if she doesn’t like me? I mean, I know she does. She spent five weeks with our family last summer, and we all said we love each other. But that was different. We were her American hosts, and we all worked hard to ensure that her visit was a great experience. But now I’m her Dad. Now things are different. At some point soon I’ll have to tell her “No”, and she may not understand why. Someday I’ll have to discipline or punish her, and she isn’t going to like it. Will she know then that I still love her? I’m going to have to teach her to make her own decisions, and then watch as she experiences her inevitable consequences. What if she thinks I don’t care? What if she changes her mind, and wishes I weren’t her father? Thinking about getting her to fully grasp that I am now her Dad, that I will always love her, and that I only want the best for her… that makes me nervous.
I wonder if God ever gets nervous about me? When He disciplines me, is He afraid that I won’t understand why? When He allows me to suffer the consequences of my decisions, is He concerned that I might think that He doesn’t care? Does He get nervous… wondering if I will regret accepting Him as my Father?
On second thought, I don’t think God gets nervous. He decided in advance to adopt me into his own family. It’s what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure (Ephesians 1:5). He knew that I would have questions, that I may have doubts, that I would certainly have fears. But He loves me, and He wanted to do it.
We decided more than a year ago to adopt O. into our family. It’s what we wanted to do. I know she’ll have questions, doubts, and fears. I love her… but I’m still nervous.
I hope she likes me.
