Entering a strange new commonplace world

As a pastor I have come to recognize the sound of devastation almost before the first syllables complete their journey from the phone into the conscious brain. It normally sends a shot of adrenalin through the body and prepares one for what may be a hurried trip to the emergency ward.

When the voice is familiar, though, that adrenalin is instantly replaced by a heavy black knot in the gut.

This time the call was from my wife. “I need you to come home right away!” There was no mistaking her panic.

“She’s pregnant. Hurry . . .”

And with that call our family entered a strange new world – the world of single parents.

It is, of course, not a new world at all. It has been around since the beginning of time. In previous generations, disease, war and the hazards of childbirth made it commonplace. And society had its ways of coping. Tales of orphanages, vagabond children and step-parents filled its stories and myths.

Today it’s divorce and the sexual revolution that keeps the population of single parents large and visible. We have our own ways of adjusting. The most frequent are blended families and single motherhood. There was a time when it was routine to ask, “What’s your father’s name?” Not any more. The biological father may not be extinct but his presence must not be presumed.

But no matter how common, it was a new world that suddenly exploded into our well-ordered lives. They say that when you are about to die, your entire life passes before your eyes. On the drive home that day, it was a thousand questions that filled my mind and their ghostly scenarios that passed before me.

Our daughter was only 16. There was nothing remotely parental about her. She had just barely gotten her driver’s license and was caught up in the intoxicating world of high school popularity. What kind of madness is it that this child will be a mother?

What about school? Dyslexia had already made school hard for her. Is this the death knell of a real education? A pregnant high school drop-out – is that what’s staring us in the face? Where does that path lead?

What about the father? Is this boyfriend now going to be part of our family? It wasn’t that he was hard to like. But it’s one thing to tolerate a punkish kid with a spiky green mohawk and more piercings than a Zulu warrior, and quite another that he be the father of my grandchild and forever part of our family.

What about my reputation as a pastor? Pastors are public people with public reputations. We can’t just retreat into our private worlds and close the doors behind us. My persona just changed from the father of three good-looking children to the father of a pregnant teenage girl.

Is it possible this is a mistake? Mistakes happen. Maybe it’s just a false alarm. And besides, sometimes pregnancies just end . . . It’s good to have a simple answer on the morality of abortion but in desperate times the mind runs its own course.

Who do we tell and when? What will our parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, say? Even worse, what will they be thinking? In my mind’s eye I could see the looks of shock and pity. And our friends . . .

That day was more than nine years ago.

The reality that followed my personal barrage of questions proved to be far less dramatic. In fact we soon realized that on the scale of disasters people live with, this really didn’t rate very high. We learned, as countless people before us have learned, that life does not unfold in scenarios but in mornings and evenings. And we experienced the meaning of the promise that God’s mercies really are “new every morning.”

Today we are just one of millions of blended families. It can be a little complicated but it is not a catastrophe.

I play a dual role of father figure and grandfather. I have learned to pass on a patter of information that allows a new acquaintance, quickly and without embarrassment, to understand our family structure. Yes, I really am a grandfather. And, yes I am too young. And, no, I don’t get to spoil my grandson and then send him home.

But today I am as proud as any father or grandfather you will ever meet. God is faithful!

James Toews is pastor of Neighbourhood Church, Nanaimo, B.C.