shift

 January of 1997, I had just been through  a typical teenage rebellion stage.
As a last resort to get me to wake up from my self destructive lifestyle, my parents had sent me to live with my sister for a while. I had been with her for a few weeks and she was at the end of her first pregnancy. I remember sitting in the bath with her one night, and I felt her baby move inside her tummy. That moment stands out to me as one of the most magical turning points in my life. I could feel a shift happening in my consciousness, it fizzeled right through me and settled deep in my heart. This mindblowing concept that a life was forming inside her made me re-evaluate every aspect of my life. I was blessed to be with her when her contractions started and I sat with her in the hospital as the nurses attached all sorts of wires to her belly. We were both so young, and had no other experience to draw upon as far as childbirth was concerned, but doing it together for me was an unforgettable experience. Her husband arrived shortly before delivery, and he took over as they wheeled her into the delivery room. Hearing the first cries of my beautiful nephew from the hospital corridor brought tears of joy to my eyes. The nurses wrapped him up and layed him on her chest, and she began to breastfeed him...............This is what life was about! This was my purpose here! Would God possibly bless me with this ultimate gift of being able to bring a child of my own into this world?
My parents had bought me a diary that christmas, on one side it said "bad days", that was the side I had written all of my entries. The other side said "good days", my first entry on that side, and every single entry thereafter, was the day my nephew was born.