Becoming A Father

So, “When are you going to have kids?” was a common question that I was asked for the first 9 years of my marriage. Many would wonder, “Are you not going to have kids? Is there a problem with why you can’t have kids?” The truth was, I was not ready for that kind of responsibility and life-changing event yet. 

Growing up, our family was dirt poor; around the age of 3, my parents made a down payment on a small lot in the middle of nowhere outside the city limits in South Texas, about 20 miles from the Mexico border. It was undeveloped, with no electricity and no running water, and the living area was a shack built together out of remnants of miscellaneous materials thrown from construction sites. It was not much; the little water we did use came from recycled milk jugs that my parents would go down to the local gas station and fill up from an outside faucet. They were in their early 20s, with neither of them having completed high school because of the difficult childhood they had growing up. 

In between the poverty, the entrance to gateway drugs, and the alcoholism that my father was experiencing, they knew they needed a change in life, but they did not know what it was. They decided it was time to get out of Texas and start over, so they moved to a little town of 5,000 people in Eastern Nebraska. My dad was able to get a job at a pork processing plant and the poverty situation improved a little bit. But my parent’s marriage was struggling and my father’s alcoholism was not improving. The change they were looking for had not been achieved. By the time I was 5, my sister was born. I can still remember the flying saucers and dishes that would come from the kitchen through the bedroom door as they smashed across the wall while my parents would be screaming and yelling at each other because of random arguments. 

One day, my father noticed a co-worker was getting bullied at this workplace. Later in the day, he asked his co-worker, “Man, you got teardrops tattooed on your face and cusswords tattooed on your hands; if you’re so gangster, why don’t you fight back like a man and take out the bully?” His co-worker replied, “That was the old me; yes, I was a gangster, but God has changed my life. Even though I have tried to get rid of the tattoos that marked my past with bleach and acid, they have not gone away, but that does not mean I am not made new in Jesus Christ. The reason I don’t fight back against the bullies is that God’s words say not to.”

The Bible says in Matthew 5:38-48 (NIV), “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. ‘ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” 

After that, his co-worker became a mentor to my dad. The story is a long one, and it took several years, but our family was saved. By the age of eleven, both my parents had gotten their GEDs, and both were fully employed and active members of the church they attended. No more issues with alcoholism, no more flying dishes crashing on the walls, and finally living a small community middle-class lifestyle. By this point, things were going well. My goals in life were to finish high school, get some kind of degree, and get to work so I could start making money and living my own life. I went to a vocational school and got an associate’s in electronic engineering. Three months before graduation, I had been recruited to work for a company out of Loveland, Colorado, that supports Oil / Gas and Power Plant’s control systems. Their sales pitch for me to start working for them was simple: Travel the world, work lots of hours and get overtime, and use the money to buy toys. 

For the first five years on my own, they were good. I bought my first home after a year and a half of working and saving, bought a BMW I had wanted since high school, a big-screen TV with surround sound, so things were going well, kind of. All this work and travel did not leave a lot of room for God; I slowly felt a numbness forming inside. Also, during the first 5 years of travel, I met Laura, and we have been in touch by messaging and Skyping. At that point in my life, I found myself asking, “God what’s next, Lord? What am I supposed to do now?”

It was around that time that my boss called to ask if I wanted to interview for a new position. I said I was interested as long as I didn’t have to travel 90% of the year. So, I was able to change jobs to where I only had to travel 25% of the year, and that felt more manageable to me. By then, I asked Laura to marry me, and in December 2012, we got married. The first couple of years of marriage were good, but it took commitment and compromise from both of us to adjust to each other’s behaviors, emotions, and ideas. 

Genesis 2:24 says, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

Having grown up in a home that was not ready to be a family nor on a Godly path, my thought process was that Laura and I should enjoy our marriage first and make sure we were settled down before taking on a new journey of starting a family as I knew or relationship would not be the same since our focus would have to shift from us to our children. In 2019, we had both agreed to start a family and by November 2019, Laura had her ultrasounds showing our soon-to-be son, Ethan. Things were going so well, just according to how we were planning everything but little did we know, COVID was about to hit the world. Seven months pregnant, and in March 2020, COVID-19 was announced to the world with lockdowns and supply shortages. I was scheduled to travel to Brazil and Laura was stressing that I would get quarantined and not be able to return by her scheduled delivery in early May. 

For as much planning and thorough process we had done, the pandemic was outside our control; it was in God’s hands. So we did the only thing that was left for us to do and that was start praying that God take control of our lives. As much as my work tried to get me to travel to customer locations, the trips kept getting canceled, so I was home with Laura until her delivery date. When Ethan was born, there were complications, so he was not breathing right; they had him in the nursery for two nights.  But God was always in control; we now have a healthy 4-year-old son, Ethan, and an 8-month-old daughter, Alison. Even though it can be a handful sometimes, we are so pleased that God has given us these two wonderful children. We may not be the best parents, but we are thankful that God set a path so we can provide them with a better upbringing than we both started out with. My prayer is that His Holy Spirit be with them wherever they may go and protect them and guide them beyond where we can be with them. 

 Thank you for reading,

Mark Flores

 

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