My Little Buddy!

  I may not express this often in this venue (the blog) but I LOVE being a Daddy!  I just can't help but crack a grin when I think of my little guy.  I mean, look at that picture of him smiling...how can you NOT crack a grin with that little face looking at you smiling?

  Having a son has made me reflect a lot, mostly internally on what it means to be a father.  It's helped me see in myself my own selfishness, which is complete and utter sin.

  Being a daddy has also helped me sense, experience and think about God in a whole new way.  He has revealed himself more times than I can count in the short time I've been a dad and I love it!

  One of those moments was on a recent "Daddy Day" that MJ and I had together.  Hilary has been working on Mondays, so little buddy and I hang out all day on Mondays.  About a week ago, he and I were having our day together when we went to the playground to play.  I usually let him loose and let him walk all by himself to the playground where he begins to play on the plastic slide, the little plastic tube and pretends to drive the car with the metal steering wheel that pops out of the plastic wall.

  Before we got to the gate, MJ runs back over to me and raises his right arm to me.  This was a new gesture for me, so I looked at his little hand sticking in the air and finally realized he wanted me to hold his hand!

  Not to be overly sappy but this hit me in a profound way where I almost started to cry.  He wanted his daddy to hold his hand and lead him to the playground.  He didn't want to go it alone and he wasn't afraid or embarrassed to lift his little hand and ask me to hold it as I guided him into the play area.

  The sad thing is, I forgot all about this story until just now.  I didn't tell Hilary about it because I forgot it.  As I remembered it, I vowed I would write it down because it was an extremely touching Father to Son moment.

  He has since done it to me a couple times (usually he does it to Mommy) and each time, it warms my heart.  Being entrusted with this little munchkin as my responsibility is daunting at times but rewarding all the time.  I am called to be a steward of my sons heart.  His heart ultimately belongs to Jesus, not me so I am asked for this short time before he grows up to guard that little heart, protect it and grow it up in the way in which it should go.

   I'm lucky, because I have an amazing, beautiful and wonderful woman who can do and does more than I do with him.  Hilary loves that boy so much and it is such a joy to watch her interact with him and see his little smile light up when he sees her and plays with her. 

  This is my family, this is my home! God has blessed me with such amazing family members that I'm blown away by His grace.  It blows my mind to think that so many "dads" are out there neglecting and ignoring their children.  Is it hard sometimes?  Yes.  Is all that worth it?  ABSOLUTELY!  Men who walk away from their children are childish punks who shouldn't be having sex.

  OK, I should stop before I write another post on that...

  Fatherhood is amazing and a blessing to me.  I wouldn't trade it for the world!

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Family Life at the Nelson's

It’s been awhile since I did a blog about my family, so I decided it’s about dang time! Today is my 4 year anniversary and I am more sure now than I was then that I am the luckiest man on the planet! Hilary is my best friend, my wonderful bride and an amazing mother to our little boy MJ! I am so grateful to the Lord above for her!


This time last year (8:45-9pm) we were enjoying our last few moments of our reception. We were probably scrambling around trying to find the food that was promised us only to find that the servers at our reception hall had scarfed it all down!

We told the hall that the left over food was going with us (Hilary and I of course) so we could eat for the next week. Needless to say we needed to find other eating arrangements!

It was also around this time that Hilary and I noticed that we hadn’t had a piece of our cake. We took little bits of it and smooshed it into each other’s faces …wait I gently placed it in her mouth when she put some on my nose…that’s right! Anyways, we didn’t even get our own piece…nor did we have any left-over to save for the 1 year anniversary.

It was a CRAZY wedding day and in the end none of that stuff mattered anyways; we had each other and that’s all that mattered then and now! God has been so gracious to us and has blessed us with our little Marv Junior (MJ as we most often refer to him).

MJ is now walking and babbling like a champ. He can make doggie noises, bear noises, cat noises, cow noises and sheep noises on command. He is so cute when he does his little bear growl…I think he actually thinks he’s scary but he’s just too darn cute to be scary!

My favorite thing that Hilary and I taught him is his “This is how he dances” impression. This comes from the e-trade babies on the airplane commercial. We got MJ to wave his hand around while pointing his finger every time we say: “This is how he dances!”

There are fewer things greater than being a daddy! I enjoy seeing him grow up, understand things and learn. He is a little bundle of joy that seems to draw people to himself and make them smile…every time!

Watching MJ explore new worlds, experience life and smile at his progress is quite the beautiful thing. I will make sure to keep up with his funny antics on the blog because he is sure to continue to do some crazy and wild things…looking forward to what he will say when he can string along coherent sentences…I’m sure he’s going to be a hoot!

3 Cheers for my wonderful wife: Hilary you are an AMAZING wife and a WONDERFUL mother! Thanks for 4 great years and a lifetime to go!

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The Sin Nature

Today more than ever I believe in the in-grown sin nature. We who have grown up in the church as well as we who are pastors have all heard that: “The sin nature comes to us from birth”. As a young man, this thought is tough to grasp and constantly brought to the forefront of my brain: “the how” questions. How is it possible? How can we tell?
Today as a father of a 10 (almost) month old, I can see clearly that this is in fact a true belief. Not that I necessarily doubted it to be true, I just never really experienced it to be true.

I discovered today, that one doesn’t need to teach the sin nature.

We were all in the living room (Hilary, myself and MJ) hanging out. MJ as is his usual was moving like a lightning bolt all around the room. His attention span on each item he touched was roughly 1.04 seconds. He was going from thing to thing. He proceeded to lick every item he handled just so he could reasonably agree that it was indeed something that wasn’t worth more than 1.04 seconds of his life.

During one of these “licking” escapades, he discovered a piece of paper…a bright orange piece of paper that he thought was worth more than 1.04 seconds of his life. So in his tiny little brain, something that’s worth hanging out with must absolutely love being in one’s mouth! He shoved this paper in his mouth, which while it was going in looked strikingly like a goldfish…but it wasn’t.

I go directly over to where he is and while walking over, I tell him “no MJ, that’s bad to chew on”.

Here’s where I noticed the sin nature. MJ being a very smart little tike knows that the word “no” usually comes before I go fishing into his mouth for the very thing he thought worthy of his time. Usually he has just been indifferent about the process…tonight he attempted escape!!! As I was walking over to him, he thought it wise to run away and try to climb the stairs to get away from me.

This was rather hilarious because he can’t walk yet and although he can scale the stairs quite rapidly he could barely get onto one step before I gripped his little body up and took the neon orange piece of paper out of his tiny mouth.

Sin is so in our being that even at 10 months of age we can be defiant! It made me wonder: How often do I defy God’s instructions? Also, when he is telling me no, like a good daddy it’s most likely because I’m sticking something in my mouth that could kill me.

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