Three Things I've Learned in my Three Weeks as a Dad

It's been a crazy three weeks in the Mok household.  One night my wife and I were cooking a simple dinner together, and the next we were going to pick up our son Levi from the adoption agency.  This happened two days before our 5-year wedding anniversary, so there have just been a lot of feelings floating around.  In the midst of this wonderfully surreal chaos, between the midnight feedings and the diaper changes, there's been a delicate balance of the incredulity at how life has suddenly changed and the realization that God always knows what He's doing.

I've learned that God's plan is far better than my own.  And in the season of glorious uncertainty known as adoption, this mantra provided us with an indescribable sense of peace.  The process became not a question of "when" we would become parents, but "who" the child was that God already had in mind for us, long before the thought of adoption ever crossed our minds.

I've learned how crucial it is to know my compass.  When you become a parent, you get bombarded with a ton of reminders, tips, strategies, worries, concerns... the list goes on and on.  Though this input from friends and family always comes with good intentions, it's easy to get swept away with a certain idea until you go down an endless Google rabbit hole and you're tallying pros and cons off of random strangers on the internet.  At the end of the day, the inane details don't really matter, and what's left to figure out in raising your child comes down to prayer.  I've prayed a lot.  Constantly, it seems.  It definitely helps knowing that Ophelia and I aren't in this whole parenting thing by ourselves.

I've learned that there is nothing that I wouldn't give for my son, but my son will never be my everything.  One thing I supremely appreciate about my marriage is that we both understand that our identities are not entirely tied up with each other.  So it doesn't matter if it's my wife, my kid, my career, my ministry, my family, my friends, my hobbies -- I have to make a conscious effort to not worship any of these different aspects of my life.

So everything has changed, yet nothing has changed.  Praising God from whom all blessings flow.