My husband and I waited in the small room, an equal mix of eager anticipation and anxiety coursing through our veins. Soon, the door to the room opened, and the sonographer walked in. As I lay waiting on the table, my husband and I held hands and exchanged a squeeze as a mutual sign of reassurance. The sonographer prepared the ultrasound transducer and started running it across the cold gel covering my abdomen. After a few minutes, the sonographer informed us that he needed to change machines as he had been having some trouble with the one that he was using. Perhaps it was his tone or his body language, but I was not convinced with his cover story. As he set up the other machine, my husband and I exchanged another hand squeeze as my anxiety started to overwhelm my eager anticipation. Again, the sonographer scanned my abdomen. We watched as blurry black-and-white images flashed across the screen. We had no idea what we were looking at, but we were nervous about the news we were about to receive. We waited. The silence was deafening. Finally, the sonographer paused and looked at us both. “Do you have a history of twins in either of your families?” he asked. Interesting choice of small talk, I thought to myself. “No,” we both answered in unison. The sonographer paused again. “Well, there are two heartbeats. Congratulations. You are pregnant with twins.”
I stared at the blurry image on the screen in disbelief. As I studied it, I realized that what I was looking at was indeed two small black dots. Two! We had prayed for one “small black dot.” We had never even considered that we would be blessed with two—at once! We left the clinic in disbelief. Our journey to parenthood had officially begun.
Around nine months after we were told we were expecting, we were blessed to meet our two little boys. As they grow, I have the joy of watching them develop and form their individual personalities. At the same time, I have also had the privilege of watching my husband become a father. Watching him become a dad to our boys has given me a fresh perspective on God’s role as my Father.
The concept of God can be challenging to grasp. Understanding God and His role in your life is hard when you’ve never seen Him with your own eyes or heard His voice. He is described in many ways throughout the Bible, and He is shown to have different characteristics. So who is God to me?
a Father’s love
The Bible tells us that God is our Father and that we are His children. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1). By describing Himself as our Father, God provides us with a framework to understand His relationship with us. Just as our human father (or someone who has stepped into that role), God is telling us that He is responsible for us. He is telling us that from the very start of our lives, He is present to love and protect us.
Amid the crying, swaddling, and sleeping, we didn’t get much sleep in the early going. As new parents, we had to learn everything from scratch—not just about how to care for our babies but also about who they were. The learning curve was and is steep. Identical twins are not easy to tell apart! Thank goodness for the hospital bracelets around their ankles identifying them as “twin one” and “twin two.”
When our children are born, we meet them for the very first time. Sure, we see 2D black-and-white images of them before they are born and even some attempts at a 3D picture of their face, although there is inevitably a hand or, in our case, their brother’s arm or leg in the way of the image. Before our children are born, we can only imagine what they will look like, how they will sound, and who they will grow up to be.
Unlike us, God knew you before you were born. The Bible tells us that He takes an active role in creating us before we are born (Jeremiah 1:5). He knows the exact number of hairs on our head (Luke 12:7) and even knows what we are going to say before we say it (Psalm 139:4). God knows us more than our human father ever could.
The good news is that even though God knows us better than we know ourselves (I certainly don’t know how many hairs I have on my own head), He loves us more than we could ever imagine. He is always there for us, no matter where we are or what we have done. God shows us His fatherly love in so many ways. Just to highlight a few:
God is love. The Bible defines God as meaning “love” (1 John 4:7–16). God’s love for us is not conditional on our actions, and He does not require us to love Him back. Whether we love God or not, God still loves us.
God is patient. The Bible tells us that God does not grow tired of loving us. His love for us does not change because of things that we have done or said. He patiently waits for us and provides us with countless opportunities to accept His love for us (Isaiah 40:28; 2 Peter 3:9).
God is always near. Unlike our human fathers, who are limited by time and distance, God is always there for us. It doesn’t matter where we are or what time of day or night it is, we can always talk to God through prayer, and He will always hear us (Psalm 4:3).
good things take time
It takes around six weeks for a newborn baby to start smiling. Before that milestone, the relationship between a newborn and their father is a one-way street. A hands-on father will spend countless hours changing them, burping them, and swaddling them without so much as a thank you. Those first few weeks between a newborn and their father are a bit like our relationship with God as our Father, especially at the start. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and even though we don’t understand the strength of His love for us, God is patient with us. His love is truly unconditional.
No matter how often we need help, day or night, God will always be there for us when we need Him. He will continue to show up for us, whether we thank Him or not, because we are His children and God is the best Father we could ever ask for.
Brianna Watson is an attorney specializing in family law. She is based in Adelaide, South Australia.
