To Be Known Is a Wonderful Thing

     My wife and I are home from the hospital again this week. This time with my baby girl in tow. She was born exactly a week ago and we came home on Monday. It is Saturday and I am sitting up in bed while my wife slumbers next to me. And next to her, in the bassinet, is my beautiful daughter.

     I sit here watching the curtains move as the cool air from the air conditioner runs up them and out into the room. I am fretting about if I turned the temperature down 1 degree too much and Delia will wake up. Then she'll need to be fed by my wife, who really needs the sleep.  The air just shut off and Delia isn't stirring so I can relax.

     Her name is Delia Simone Fant. Her first name is Greek and it means a resident of the isle of Delos. Simone is Hebrew and it means "she hears God and God hears her." So you see, she already knows more Greek and Hebrew than I learned in seminary.

     She mostly just eats and sleeps at this point. My wife and i sleep whenever she is sleeping. But when she wakes up, we do our best to fulfill her needs. My wife is doing great with the breast feeding and Delia has more than gained back all the weight she lost in the two days after being born. This is a very unusual feat and I am so proud of my wife.

     You should have seen my wife powering through the pain of labor with me at her side. I am filled with so much respect for her when thinking back to labor. And I am so grateful that I could be there and be someone she could rely on during the hardest 24 hours she may have ever been through.

     Delia herself brings me so much joy. In those rare intervals between eating and sleeping she will stop and look up at me with a look of sheer wonder. It is the same look she brings to every moment she stops to take in her new strange world. The first day in the hospital she was laying on my chest and smiled the biggest smile. Everybody said babies don't do that yet, but she does it when she seems content. Even her pediatrician commented on it, saying "she's not supposed to do that yet!" It makes me so proud. The doulas who come by every other night to help us out have commented that for a baby so young, she is very social and interactive. I think she gets this from her mom.

     You see, her mom was a pastor's kid and grew up in her dad's small church. She was constantly surrounded by an intimate community. She grew up with so many de facto aunts and uncles and sisters and brothers. And she has taught me so much, being the quiet introvert that I am. Many of those people, 30 some years later, are bringing us meals during our first month with the new baby. They followed her through every twist and turn in life - though we are members of my church now and she had lived away in Nashville for 15 years. They were there after her car accident, there after first marriage fell apart. And now here for her marriage to me and our first baby. The body of believers (your home church) provides a level of community unparalleled in this modern Western world. It is something that is lacking for so many people, people who are lonely in the shallow community that our society provides.  I came to church for many years before I realized this - always sitting in the back and leaving right after the last worship song.  A few people knew me because my mother was such a foundational stone in our church, but for the most part I stayed to myself.  It is a scary thing to be known.  It is a scary thing to put yourself out there - really showing yourself for who you are - with all your faults and failures. Many people are too afraid to do this.  And they live alone their whole lives. But when I finally got involved in small groups and ministries, I met many people like me.  I met people my age as well as older father and mothers who shared some foundational beliefs.  We had something in common and it led to many friendships over time. Some people are scared of the church. But like blind men, and like me, if they go there over time, their eyes will be opened. Opened like my eyes were and soon the eyes of my new-to-the-world daughter.  You can be known.  In Genesis 16:13, Hagar calls God El Roi "the God who sees me."  The church is the

body of Christ on earth, God's physical body.  In your church you are seen.  You are known.  If you are real, you are really known for who you are.  It is a wonderful thing to be known.  Known by God and his body.  And you can know others in this way.  In my church we already know several couples our age who just had their first baby.  I hope my daughter will grow up with their daughters and sons knowing that she is known.  Knowing that she is loved for who she is. Knowing that God sees her and loves her intimately, in silent times of prayer and practically, through the people he surrounds her with.