When God Holds Your Hand Badly.

If 2020 (all flowery philosophical and faith based sentimentality put aside)..

was an easy year for you then you might be a masochist or if you were not at all stretched by this year you might just already be perfect.

This is not to say one is a masochist if one has legitimately experienced new life blessings this year (We received our first baby girl into the world this year).

It is also not to say that faith based sentimentality is not often anchored in solid reasoning beyond mere emotion and thus… ‘a wash’.

What it does boil down to is a confession that the ‘perfect man’ sleeps through the storm and the imperfect man cries out in terror “Lord, we perish!”

There is a type of restful contented waiting that weighs heavier than any storm. They say that the “little ones” have the kingdom of God and I believe I have proof. This year I got to witness that contentment and peace first hand or rather ‘hand in hand’.

I named my daughter Eliza to be a female version of Elijah the prophet.

Well in her first year of life not only has she gone through the Coronavirus Pandemic and global economic upheaval but as of recent time, here on the Alabama, Gulf Coast she has gone through hurricane Sally (The most contrivedly and ill undermeasured Cat3 I’ve ever been through in my opinion).

Interestingly enough my wife and mother in law who are both from Venezuela had never been through a hurricane so while we sheltered at my parents home I had plenty of snuggles with my wife that easily matched that of a couple watching a horror film. My wife was a little spooked by the whole ordeal obviously.

Now on the other hand our daughter Eliza was definitely a little preacher by her actions. She like Elijah lived through the whirlwind and like Jesus slept through the storm! Thats right she slept through ALL of the worst hours of the storm where all the damage happened!

I know this amazed my wife but it personally deeply inspired me. Our little prophet weathered and slept through the storm and all throughout this year has never ceased to be the little chonk of joy she was.

So for the title of this blog post I want to explain it a little more because it was another little precious way my daughter deeply inspired me just by being her and that was by one of my favorite little encounters with her.

In the age of smart phones alot of us become dummies from time to time. I think my baby intuitively knows this and she returns my wife and I back to the human. Yes sometimes in the hodrum of everyday life and exhaustion even we can veg out on our phone. My baby on the other hand as a fresh human straight out of the oven won’t have it! If we are on a phone in her presence she will protest..she will return us to the now. The most precious example of that is if I am feeding her with bottle and putting her to sleep. If I have a phone she will get frustrated.

Just like God my baby innocently and purely demands my total attention.

When I feed her it’s all or nothing. It’s daddy and daughter time. It’s ‘contigo’. But the funny thing is though she demands that I look right at her little face and just be present with her she also demands that she can play with my hand while I feed her. She wants to hold my hand but she doesn’t always do so with consistency.

Sometimes she has a death grip and other times I feel like a goldfish is slapping me! But I have learned a very deep 2020 lesson from this encounter of love and relationship with our precious daughter. In these moments of connection and relationship building I have learned something splendidly transcendant!

I have learned that sometimes we might be inclined to impugn guilt on God for seemingly sleeping through our often stormy lives. I have learned it is easy to be jealous of those for whom storms seem to not shake their easy restfulness of spirit but with a shift of perspective one can be inspired by it! I have learned that God demands our attention with crystaline and 2020 vision (hindsight is 2020 and all that..) and I have learned that it is the connection that matters the most and that it is better to hold God’s hand even if like a little child He ‘holds our hand badly.’

(James Dillon Broxson born and raised in Alabama likes dark bold letters because why not? But seriously they really are much better right?! James is a father of one beautiful baby girl named Eliza born in 2020 and married to an amazing lady from Venezuela named Carolina.)