"Tomorrow."

I heard the word, but it just didn't compute.

"Tomorrow." He said it again.

I guess my face showed that my brain was not processing, so I added an "Uh-huh," to my blank stare. I could not remember what the word meant. We had been waiting for so long, preparing for so long. I felt like the day would never come and now he says it again.

"Tomorrow."

At this point I just started repeating whatever the person in front of me said.

"Tomorrow." "Tomorrow"

Sometimes I would add different anunciations, making it a question or an exclamation.

"Tomorrow." "Tomorrow?" "Tomorrow!!!"

No matter how many times we said it, I just could not compute.

This is what it feels like to become a parent. The moment I'm describing is the day my very pregnant wife and I went to the doctor for a "check-up" and found out that our first child would indeed be born the next morning. For all the months, money, and energy we had spent preparing for this moment, I still did not feel ready. Of all the books I read, none prepared me for the temporary memory lapse that my vocabulary suffered and the bouts of temporary insanity I would undergo over the next 24 hours (I went home and vacuumed the house 3 times. I couldn't stop cleaning).

We read. We cleaned. We painted. We prayed. We prepared.

But the closer and closer we actually came to "tomorrow" the more and more unprepared I felt.

Can you imagine being Mary and Joseph? Not only were they were going to have a baby, but they had so many other issues. They are unwed. She is a teenager. Its not his child. They have to make a long trip in the last trimester. Oh yeah... and their baby is going to grow up and become the Messiah. How do you prepare for that?

I was a wreck going into the birth. I couldn't remember anything from any book. I didn't understand anything that was going on around me. The vocabulary memory thing happened again, only 10 times worse. At one point I wanted to tell the doctor to just put the baby back in and we'd just stay pregnant.

It would be easier to just live in a perpetual state of preparing.

But there was no escaping it. That's the thing about babies... they are eventually born. And now the doctor was handing my son to me. I would hold him for the first time. No more preparing. This was the moment. And as soon as we touched, something happened...

I surrendered. I gave up. I gave up trying to prepare to be a dad, and I just started being a dad. I didn't need any books or any words or any time. All I needed was to hold him and let him hold me.

I'm sure Mary and Joseph discovered the same thing. You don't have to figure everything out beforehand. You don't have to have all the answers. All you have to do is love this child and let this child love you.

I hope this Christmas season you discover the joy of surrendering to Christ, of simply holding onto Him and letting Him hold you, of loving Him and letting Him love you.

A thankful heart prepares the way of the Lord.