Ah, its a great day! 28 epic years ago something happened in our family. Call it a sign and a wonder,or a miracle, but something of apocalyptic proportion took place and we were never the same. Heck, Fresno was never the same. The world was never the same. A bolt of lightning, a clap of thunder, a piece of flaming ember from an exploding volcano, a whirlwind, tornado, tsunami, earthquake, comet, a close encounter of the 5th kind. Ah, you guessed it didnt you. The Lord saw fit to bless and test me with the birth of a little spit fire girl. Her coming was, as I said, of epic proportion. Sit and listen and I shall tell you the story of the birth of my daughter Shakinah Rae. As Maurice Chaveliar once sang, Thank heaven for little girls. But that was a song I only liked to sing as a father of two sons. I never, ever wanted a little girl. Little girls, as in daughters, were like spiders: they terrified me. Little boys, well, that was different. Sons swell a fathers chest with pride. Thar is ma boyees rot tchere type thing. In no time at all they got me and I got them. They werent two yet and already they were shaking their antlers at the old man, testing their mettle against me, shanking me in the stomach and back with whatever resembled a knife, bear hugging my leg and growling as they attempted to take me down. I could bark out, Hey, knock it off! and that was that.If a spanking was in order, a couple of controlled swats on the behind, followed by some tears a hug, we cool? and that was that. All of 5 minutes, and we moved on as if nothing happened. See what I mean? Not so, little girls. I knew I was in trouble when Shakinah first came out of the shoot. She was smoking a cigar, and looked up at me with a frown and said, Hey. you looking at me? You looking at me? with a Sicilian New York accent. Then there was the witchcraft thing. Something came over me as soon as they parted her hairy little head and put some kind of pink thingy in it. A wave like what the spies shoot out of special ray guns (where she got her middle name ray from...Oh wait, its spelled Rae...never mind) hit me and I felt dizzy, woozy. I got weak in the knees, felt like I had to throw up, had to be helped down on a chair. Cold compresses were placed behind my neck and on my forehead. Nurses were patting my head. I came to three days later and didnt know my name or who the strange woman was in the bed with the baby was. All I could do was utter beda Beda Beda beda Beda. What is it about women and baby girls? So the room became filled with women and that high pitched thing they do when talking to the baby. I observed this like an anthropologist watching the strange behavior of some alien species. They all did it and all seemed to know instinctively what to do. I was standing there taking notes when they all turned to me simultaneously, again, instinctively, and said Daddy, would you like to change your little girls diaper for the first time. My body temperature dropped suddenly. I was cold and clammy all over. A sense of fear, foreboding, dread crept over me like a death shroud enfolding me. I felt i was going to die. What grounded me to this earthly life was someone placing the fragile bundle of Joy in my arms. I put on a face. I was as shamelessly pretentious as a politician mugging for the camera. No problem I said, acting confident but feeling turd faced. I turned my back to the women, laid the little girl - she wasnt mine yet - down on the changing table, and then it occurred to me: Hey, this is a little GIRL! A fresh wave of terror shot up my spine as if shot from a syringe full of ice water. I spoke to myself in my inner big boy voice Legs, dont you fail me now. Buck up son! Then it happened; while I started with palsied staccato movements to remove her diaper I felt 50 sets of female eyes swoop in for a closeup. I suddenly felt like a child molester. I feared something frightening was lurking inside that diaper that was foreign, unnatural, unfamiliar. This wasnt a little boy, this was a little GIRL! LITTLE Girl!! I practiced breathing as if I was at the beginning of a contraction. I started doing effleurage on myself. All the while 50 sets of female eyes were staring down on me accusingly, as if saying How could you! How Could YOU!? I managed to get her changed, maneuvering through all the humiliating movements of wiping, powdering, and putting on a new diaper, swaddling her and holding her close for pictures. And thats when a second wave of witchcraft hit me. She cooed and looked at me, and I swear she winked at me, as if to say, Dont worry, Ive got you. Dang, I knew I was in big trouble. Needless to say I fell hard in love with this little girl God had given to me. Oh yes, let me tell you about THAT! So, my oldest boy Ben (Bear as Curt Holmes called him cause he was born with hair all over his forehead and back and stuff) was about 4 and second child and son Nic (Nicky) was around 2 when a wrinkle in their world, a shift in their reality, a glinch in the machinery of their paradise, happened. SJ had been bugging me for another baby for around a year. She felt - wait for it - incomplete. That is wife-speak for, Give me another child or there will be absolute hell to pay! She would then remind me of the vision I had years ago about two little boys, a dark haired son, and a tow head son. By that vision I knew what kind of boys I would have including their temperament. SJ reminded me about that vision and said she had one too, which included the two boys but also a third child, a DAUGHTER. My Heck no! became Oh H_LL NO! I then waxed theological: God will never tempt us beyond what we are able to bear. My eisogesis was powerful. No one could stand against it. Or so I thought. After such episodes, SJ would turn and weep softly, while I laid there fully justified in my rational, logical, biblical decision. Shell thank me for it later, I told myself. Or so I thought. Afterwards, I would take her gently in my arms and sensitively say to her, Lets pray about it. If God wants us to have another child (at this SJ would interrupt and say a girl - a daughter) and i would repeat with stuttering a gah gah gah url. So I would lead us in a smug prayer. This seemed to work wonders on my wife because afterwards she was extremely friendly in the wifey kind of way, feel me? I learned over time that anytime I wanted to have my way with her in a biblical sense, I would repeat these same goings on with the same very satisfying results. I had found the magic lever that worked every time, something one can never ever find in a lifetime. But alas, I had found it. I felt bad for manipulating Sj and, for that matter, the Lord, but my heart was right. Wrong. About 6 months later I was getting ready to preach my sermon on a Sunday morning, excited to be preaching out of Romans 8. Although this was 28 years ago, mind, I remember for some reason at least that much of the sermon. Just before I got up to preach, my assistant pastor gave the announcements. In those days - due to the fact we had so many young marrieds, almost every other Sunday we had an announcement that some couple was pregnant. You see where this is going? So the assistant Pastor, I think his name was Ray Judas Iscariot Duran, made the following announcement: Brothers and sisters, we have another one of those announcements this morning. At this, the congregation looked at one another and the women made that high pitched sound they always make when waxing sentimental and endearing. Judas continued And what makes this announcement unique for us here at this church, is that the father doesnt know it yet. he will be learning about this along with the rest of us. Oh man, this was too much for me. i got up and started calling out guys, while all the fathers started to simultaneously start perspiring. Hey, congratulations Jerry. Congratulations Keith. Congratulations Mike. And as I said this I was pointing my finger and laughing hysterically at how uncomfortable they were feeling. As they looked at their wives, their wives just acted bewildered and shook their heads. Then, without any further adieu, assistant pastor Judas Iscariot turned to me and locked me eye to eye and with a smirk reminiscent of the Scottish nobleman Lochlans betrayal of William Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk, and said Congratulations pastor, youre going to have a baby. Indicative of things to come, that thing now known as the wave came over me, cold clamminess, light-hardheadedness, weak knees, amnesia, the whole PTSD thing happened. I should of known if it happened at the very mention of her conception (by the way, she - who is the wife the Lord gave me - the seductress - had been pregnant for 3 months, afraid to tell me as the gravity of her deceitfulness dawned on her). Oh I should have known. I stumbled down the steps and went to my precious Bathsehba, and putting on a smile/grimmace, said, Congratulations dear. I am so happy. Ant then I leaned in and tenderly kissed her on her cheek and whispered Wench! Dont ask me what I preached that morning. I think it went something like Beda beda beda beda. Another sign of things to come. I knew enough then about the impact conception and how a conception is responded to, can impact a child in the womb negatively or positively. So I told the woman who was and, due to my saint-like mercy, still is my wife, I needed to get the victory over what I was feeling before my heart hardened and rejection could be perceived in the womb. So I went back to church and remained there in prayer until that evenings service. There are many kinds of prayer: the prayer for healing; the prayer of intercession; the prayer of contrition, etc...That day I created a new prayer: the prayer of how could YOU! I reminded the Lord how unbecoming deceitfulness and trickery were for someone like Him. How he used me, yay, mockethed me (I tend to speak in King James when i really feel righteous). I complained about the fact that if this was His will, why didnt He soften my heart, or at least tell me. I reminded him of the Garden of Eden scenario, and how the fall of Adam and Eve happened shortly after He created Eve. How Eve deceived Adam to partake of the fruit. How it really was His fault the whole thing happened, as Adam had said when he said The woman whom You had given me, she caused me to do it. In one fell swoop Adam shifted the blame to Eve and then to God. Thats what I tried to do. What I got in response was a parable: The sower sowed the seed. That was it. By that i was to understand that hey, you do the deed, you sow the seed. I protested, She used me! He corrected, No, you used ME to seduce her. I felt three lightning bolts poised and ready to punctuate His sentence if I needed further convincing. In the end, like the wrestling match with Jacob, God submitted me in the ring. And He took my heart of stone and broke it, leading me to write one of my churchs all time favorite worship songs, Jesus, Lord Love Me Tender. Jesus, Lord love me tender As I surrender my heart of stone to You. Master, please come and hold me Put Your arms around me and break my heart of stone. And if i cry a little bit Its not because Im sad or lonely Ive never felt so close to You before. And if I cry a little bit, Its because my heart of stone is breaking And I can trust again, because you love me tender. Each of my children were given to SJ and i from God. We were shown them, and is some mysterious way, knew each of them. We knew what they would look like. What their temperament would be like, and how God would use them. Each of their names were selected carefully and intentionally. Shakinah Raes name holds the secret of who she is and what she was born to do. Unlike the naming of our sons, I was the one who came up with Shakinah, which means the glory of God. It is spelled the way it is instead of Shekinah, because we combined it with the Hebrew word for peace and well being, Shalom.So her name is a compound name meaning peace in the glory of God. Later SJ was given the name Rae from Raezi meaning secret. So her middle name means my little secret. When Sj was 13, her mom finally succumbed to death after many years of struggle and many surgeries in the aftermath of a brain tumor. it was very hard on her. She never fully grieved or felt her family fully grieved her loss. This wasnt due to any fault on her familys part. her dad was a full bird Colonel in the Air Force, and her two sisters were grieving in their own right. Her father was a strong man and reserved in showing his emotions. Sj felt a duty to not add to his suffering or be a burden to him, and so grieved privately as best she could. He mom died on September 17 or 9/17. Remember that date. We had no doubt that SJ had conceived a girl. Long before we knew what gender the baby was, we had everyone convinced it was a little gilr. No one doubted it. It was a fact. Very uncanny. And then one night after church, one of our dearest friends, Anna Daly, came up to SJ and said, The Lord has given me something for you, but only you will know what it means. Im hearing Birth of a daughter, death of a mother. SJ took that immediately to mean that the birth of this little girl would somehow bring healing to her grief stricken heart over the death of her mother. Up to that time she still suffered pangs of grief grief over the loss of a mother she missed terribly. So we found out finally that it was an 80% sure thing the baby was a girl. And like I said, we never doubted it, having bought little girl things, and painting her room in little girl colors and talking to her by name blessing her, singing to her, and just fellowshipping with her outside the womb. I knew in my heart she would be a game changer as far as I was concerned. Well, we did have a moment of fear just before she was born, and SJ and I looked at each other right before they took her in for surgery, What if we were wrong? Of course we would love and be thankful for whatever the Lord gave us, but couldnt help being sure and certain we were having a girl. During her labor it was apparent SJ would have to have a C-section deliver. She had two already and although we attempted a natural birth, she ended up having her c-section. As they lifted the little girl up and out of the womb and handed her to me, at that precise moment, I looked at the clock as the Dr. did, and saw with my eyes and heard with my ears these words, Time of birth, NINE SEVENTEEN. She was born on the same date as the one her mother died on, and get this, the date also was 9/17! How to define her? You might as well try to ride a tornado; rope a hurricane; out shout the thunder or punch a lightning bolt. She is a mystery; inexplicable; fiery; passionate; temperamental; emotional; tempestuous; head strong; willful, and fiercely loyal to her friends. She is also a calm and reassuring counselor; a friend who loves at all times; kind-hearted, generous to a fault (often giving hundreds of dolars away to needy friends); loves children, has a heart for challenged kids (was a teachers aide for years at Hoover) and the elderly (she used to excuse herself and go and sit with an elderly person sitting alone at a fast food place, and worked a second job at an old folks home).She is so beautiful she can take your breath away. She is complicated, always on the move, loves to be around energy and parties, and generally wherever something is happening. She likes to be happy, can be overcome with sadness at the suffering of others; is protective and defensive of her friends and anyone, even her enemies, if they are the under dog. She has always loved Jesus, always looked for ways to share Her testimony with people and bring them to Christ; was a missionary for a year in Haiti, and is and always will be a missionary at heart. One day she wants to adopt a Haitian child. She has a great smoky alto voice, is driven, determined, tough and rough and soft and tender. She is an enigma. She is the end and beginning of her father. She is my and always will be my little girl; my butterscotch girl; my little Twit, my spitfire. I am grateful to be your dad Shakinah. You are Maria in the sound of music. Chaotic, catalytic, and a problem not to be solved. Why, one might as well try to hold a moon beam in ones hand. Your proud dad. Happy birthday Shak.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 17:22:20 +0000