What Our First Baby Taught Me: Real Love Is Caring for Others

When you are young and distracted, it’s hard to understand some of the most amazing experiences yet to come. Here’s what I learned holding our baby daughter for the first time.

How do we learn about “love”?

People use the word love in many ways in daily life. I hear people expressing with enthusiasm how much they “love” this or that thing. It may be a song, an article of clothing or a place. “I just love that sweater” or “I love that singer,” people say.

We also use the word love to describe the youthful feeling of attraction to another person. But, of course, love goes far deeper than that. It is a genuine feeling of deep concern for the welfare of another person. I think we begin to understand that more in a marriage relationship—and even more as we have children.

Something changed

After my wife and I got married and our first child was born, something changed.

I was in my early 20s when I experienced something profound. My wife had just had our first child, and after I had brought them home from the hospital, I had my first opportunity to hold my new baby daughter.

I was sitting on the sofa and had this precious, innocent new life lying on my lap. She was a chubby cheeked, sweet-smelling little thing nestled in her blanket and staring up at me. It was overwhelming. I started telling her a story of a little Indian girl and a white buffalo calf born on the same day. I doubt whether she grasped the concept, but I felt I needed to build a relationship and wanted to share as much as I could.

Sometime that afternoon, it suddenly struck me. I was a father and responsible for her life and her future success. My life would affect her thinking and her approach to her life as she grew up from girl to woman and became her own person.

Suddenly a deep concern for her welfare reached me deep down in my heart and head. As a husband and father, I was going to have to shape up and make some changes in my life. My thoughts and plans were slow in coming, but come they did. My life changed.

Scripture says, “Train up a child in the way he [or she] should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). It dawned on me that that would be a responsibility and a challenge I would have to accept.

Deepened my understanding of love

My wife and I have been blessed with two other children we love deeply, but that first realization made quite an impact. It deepened my understanding of love and showed me more about God’s love. It is a fabulous thing to hold and look at someone you helped bring into this world and know that her fragile life is dependent on your nurture and care.

This type of love requires time, commitment and nurturing. God intends that His children learn to parent those children they bring into the world. God is love, and God is a parent. God’s plan is about taking responsibility and sacrificing to help others grow and flourish.

If you are not yet married, it’s good to consider and prepare for the day you might also come to a sense of fascination for the gift of family. It gives a burden, a joy and a love that most people seldom take the time to reflect on.

Share your thoughts—and your love

As we launch this new Christian Parenting Blog, we want to welcome you. Please feel free to add your thoughts on our Facebook page about this amazing challenge and responsibility of preparing your offspring for their amazing potential as part of the family of God.

• Share some thoughts about prioritizing your family with work, school and other activities.
• Write some of your experiences that might help others.
• And tell your children often how much you really, really love them.

Les McCullough is a former church pastor and president, college professor and administrator. He is now a member of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, and lives in Texas with his wife, Marion.