This is going to be a bit of a strange blog for me to write. I am writing from the Tim Horton’s on Granville Street on Wednesday, February 25th, but by the time you read it, we will already be in the early days of March. This would be entirely insignificant were it not for the fact that between now and then Carrie and I will finally lay eyes on the little girl that has taken up residence in Carrie over these last 39 weeks. Like Ethan, Round #2 (as we affectionately call her) will be born by required c-section early Tuesday morning. It’s for this reason that I can say with certain confidence that if you are reading this blog, we are now a family of four!

I would be lying if I said that her arrival hasn’t snuck up on me. I’ve never spent so much time looking at calendars and thinking about dates as I have over the last couple of months. But despite Carrie’s persistence in counting down the days and weeks and warning me that she’s going to come sooner than I expect, I still feel unprepared. Before Ethan was born, there wasn’t much else going on. I was done Regent and just working part time with St. Peter’s. Carrie went off work on medical leave at 32 weeks in an effort to stave off any possible complications. On top of that, it was the summer and most of our time was simply devoted to spending time with friends and preparing for Ethan’s arrival.

The same cannot be said of this pregnancy. Not only did Carrie work until 38 weeks, but we already have a little boy who takes all our attention. We have spent most of our free moments trying to ready our home to welcome our little girl. Despite many faithful friends having sacrificed their Saturday mornings that we might have a couple productive hours unencumbered by the insatiable curiosity of a toddler, we are still not ready. And now instead of weeks, the count down is in days and we wonder how we’re possibly going to be ready to be at the hospital at 6:30am next Tuesday.

Over the past weeks quite a few people have said to us, “I can’t believe you’re due already!” Whenever Carrie hears this she lets out a little gasp, because she doesn’t exactly share their perspective. Quite a few times, in fact, I’ve heard her say exactly the opposite: “Man, pregnancy is long!” But count me among the incredulous. It feels like only yesterday that I was on the phone with Carrie (from Edmonton while I was back in Vancouver) telling me that she was pregnant.

I have to be reminded that He will act. That much like the little girl I wait for, He will come in power and weakness to raze all that I’ve built and all that I’ve thought important.

But the difference isn’t one of knowledge or information. The difference is a matter of intimacy. Over these last months, every aspect of Carrie’s existence has been impacted by this little life. She has known her intimately, in both intimate joy and intimate inconvenience. But I am little more than an observer – an outsider to their intimacy. While Carrie has known her in the exuberance of her early movements and the discomfort of her protruding head, I have not. I have known her only obliquely it seems, in the faint flutters or the alien images displayed on the screen in the doctor’s office. I do not know her in the same way Carrie does.

And so our expectation is different as well. Carrie waits to see the face of the child she has already known perhaps as intimately as she will ever know her. I wait to meet the one about whom I’ve heard so much. The one I’ve only known at a distance but whom I already love. I wait to meet my promised little girl; the one who will tear my world apart and wreck me with but a look. We both wait, but the waiting is different. Carrie waits to meet the one who’s already interrupted her life. I wait for my life to be interrupted.

And this has got me thinking about the fact that this is so often how it is with God. There have been seasons when I have known Him intimately. There have been seasons when I have known His unsettling yet comforting presence; seasons in which I wait not for Him to act, but to see the face of the one I have known through His action. Yet there are other seasons, longer seasons usually, in which I know Him only at a distance. Seasons in which He is merely the one I’ve heard about, the one I read about, and if I’m lucky, the one I remember. It’s in these seasons that I long for Him to act, long for Him to break in and show me that what I wait for is not an illusion.

And when I find myself in the midst of this season, I have to be reminded that He will act. That much like the little girl I wait for, He will come in power and weakness to raze all that I’ve built and all that I’ve thought important. What’s left for me to do in this season is merely to look and long for the day that my life will yet again be interrupted.

St. Peter's Fireside