This feels like the beginning of something…
Beginnings aren’t usually as beautiful and romantic as we imagine them. When we look back on the things that have developed into something meaningful in our life, we often see them less raw and chaotic, and more glorious than they actually were at their inception. When we hope for new beginnings, they too become distorted by the aspirations they represent. Beginnings themselves are a wild and uncharted wilderness that are, by their very nature, chaotic, rather than calm, messy, rather than clean, and weak, albeit full of potential.
Those of us who’ve been present for someone else’s beginning know the true nature of such things. I was there for the birth of each of my children. I know I’m not alone when I say it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. For nine months I had imagined my first child, a baby girl, as a beautiful blonde-headed, blue-eyed, fair-skinned doll (which she now is). I had pictured holding her at birth, so serene and sweet. In my mind’s eye, she was one way, but at the beginning, she was clearly another.
I’ll never forget the physician saying “look at that head of hair” which made me leap from behind the curtain by my wife’s side (it was a c-section) under the assumption that she had been born, only to realize she had not! I sat down rather quickly, but what little I had seen of her had already undone much of what I imagined her appearance to be. Her hair wasn’t blonde, it was dark brown and there was a lot of it!
Moments later, the rest of my assumptions were replaced by a sound that filled the entire room as if she had sucked up all the air around her and decided to bellow it back at each of us with the fervor and angst of an angry opera singer. The sheer tone and volume she produced was simultaneously comforting and disturbing, and this was just the beginning!
Rest assured that I now treasure every distinct difference her beginning brought, no matter how much it varied from what I had previously conceived (pun intended). Her reality was far more beautiful and wonderful than I could have ever imagined. But the reality of her beginning, and that of my sons, speaks to the nature of beginnings in general. They are rarely what we imagine them to be.
I’ve learned some profound lessons from their beginnings, as well as from beginnings of my own. One is that it’s ok to have less-than-glorious beginnings. God once inspired a “minor” prophet to pen these words:
“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin,” Zechariah 4:10a
We all have to start somewhere, and my somewhere is here. This blog and the many creative things which are to come through suchasihave.com are the beginning of something I can only see in part. I may not know what the end looks like, but I won’t let the fear of a small or seemingly insignificant beginning stand between me and what will be. Will you?
Such As I Have…I Give You
In Jesus’ name,
Nathan C.
You do very good with the metaphors you use. They paint a bright picture for me. I can hear those sounds and see my baby girls head full of hair. Our preacher said a few weeks ago that the mind has a way for making the past glorious sometimes. If you think back, some of the things that you thought were a disaster turn into a happy memory later in life. Kind of like the saying “we gonna laugh at this later!” Also how older people always say how good the past was even though there was much more poverty and less conveniences back then. Happy to have found this and be along on the journey now.