ICYMI my wife and I are expecting our second child any day now. It's an exciting and stressful time to say the least. With our first, we found ourselves anxiously twiddling our thumbs during the last four weeks of uncertainty. We wondered if we would have any idea when this baby would arrive. My wife experienced phantom and illusory signs of labor, but in the end we wound up scheduling an induction at 41 weeks. It was not a moment too soon for my incredible spouse. This baby is a bit different in nearly every way (bodes well for the future, eh?) We are experiencing differences in these early signs of labor and all of the visits up until this point. To be frank - I have no idea whether we will make it to 41 weeks again.
With the arrival of a new child, we are going to enter into a strange time here at Checkpoint. I've been working myself to the bone for the past two months making sure we had enough stocked sermons and newsletters to hold us for a full four-weeks of paternity leave. I've made our LVL2 members more than aware of the gap. Streams on Twitch will wrap for a full two weeks before a slow return on week 3. Emails will be paused.
I want to acknowledge how weird of a thing this is for a pastor, or more specifically a church planter. It's likely that a paternity leave could stretch and test this community in ways that it hasn't been so far. It's likely that those two weeks of radio silence will be a source of stress and tension for myself and for the servant-hearted folks giving their all to this community.
I'm thankful for this challenge. I'm thankful that we are where we are right now to tackle it head-first. I'm thankful for the folks that we have supporting this community. I'm thankful for God's lived presence in the midst of every gap. I'm thankful for the love that I've experienced in this decision. God is good and we aren't going anywhere. On the other side, we'll be completely new and refreshed - erm, at least Y'ALL will be. I'll be sleep deprived. Grace-filled, but sleepy.