Fatherhood: Protect and Provide

by Jason Arnold

That’s when it hit me: I’m a dad! If this little baby needed something, I would have to be the one to provide. Months of pregnancy were only able to bring thoughts of what fatherhood would be like. Now that he was here, those thoughts quickly turned to reality. Since the moment of his birth, my greatest desire and regular challenge would be his protection and to provide for his needs. I was now used to protecting and providing for my wife as we had been married for five years, but it certainly seemed like what was added was more than one more human. In mathematical terms, one wife + one son seemed like way more than two.

Our son was born 10 weeks early and weighed two pounds and 10 ounces at birth. He spent the first six weeks of his life in NICU growing to a whopping four pounds before we finally got to bring him home. Before he could be released, Kim and I had to go through infant CPR training and learn how to use the breathing and heart monitor which he would need to wear to alert us if he stopped breathing or had heart issues. Needless to say, we were overwhelmed. We were given a stack of prescriptions as well. One of them required a specific type of pharmacy that could compound the correct prescription. As I went to our regular pharmacy, and then to another one they had recommended only to be sent to another one, that’s when that feeling really hit me: Nolan required his Dad, me, to provide the medicine he needed to stay healthy. The word “weighty” is not strong enough to describe that feeling as it came over me. The third pharmacist heard Nolan’s story and stopped what he was doing to fill the prescription. With medicine in hand, training passed and two anxious parents, Nolan left the hospital to go home for the first time.

I think every new father goes through these feelings that come when our first child arrives. As my son is now 18 years old, I can’t say that the feelings have waned too much. Clearly he is able to care for himself much more than when he was a newborn, but the fatherly desires to protect and provide have not faded from my heart and mind. Truth be told, he’s big enough to fight his own battles and could provide for his own needs once he graduates next spring. But even then I think those inclinations to provide and protect will remain a part of my thoughts.

It is not a stretch to see how our heavenly Father does the same thing. In fact, He tells us that He will supply all of our needs (Philippians 4:19), that He will not let us lack what we need (Psalm 23:1) and that He will protect us (Isaiah 41:10 and many others). It is good to be reminded that our Heavenly father will provide and protect, and that He is the only one who will never fail.

Author Bio
Jason is husband to Kim and father to Nolan and their yellow lab, Mabel. He gets his kicks watching baseball, talking about and working on cars, fishing, and reading business articles and books. He was called to ministry out of the "real world" of finance in 2007. Since then, he's completed a master and doctorate degrees and hopes to never write another paper again. He has served as Executive Pastor of Inside-the-Walls Ministry since 2013.