My Favorite Doug Fields Story

“My spiritual journey has been a long one. I’ve been a Christian since I was a teenager – 25 years. It took me 15 years of being a Christian before I experienced God’s love. I went to Bible College. I learned about God’s love. I went to graduate school and learned from some of the best teachers in the world about God’s love. I learned the Old Testament in its original language – Hebrew, and the New Testament – Greek. I went into a church and I taught about God’s love.

But what it was, was theory until about ten years ago and I experienced it. I experienced it in a unique package – baby. I didn’t want kids. Nothing against children. It wasn’t like I hated children. I’d just met one. And working with teenagers is a form of birth control in and of itself anyway. But when I was newly married we were invited over to some friend’s house for dinner and they sat me next to a one-year-old. And it was by far the grossest experience of my life. They fed this kid something like yam-o-nasty. He’s got these yams and he’s squeezing them in his hands and their shooting out of his fingers and he’s talking to them. And the sick part is that my wife knew what he was saying! It was terrible. Here I was trying to eat steak and the kid, all of a sudden, gets scared and slams them into his ears. I’m trying to eat my meal and he’s got ten pounds of yam coming out his ears. And then the parents give him Jell-O. Adults can’t even eat Jell-O. He’s got Jell-O everywhere. Then he puts his hands toward me and starts talking to me! And I whisper to him, “You touch me and I’ll drop kick you!”

We’re driving home that night and my wife is rubbing food stains from her dress. I said, “Dear, I don’t ever want to have kids.” And she just smiled and laughed. Then it wasn’t too long until I was in a delivery room. It started with just three of us – my wife, me, the doctor. I was right there. I wasn’t in the lobby reading Field and Stream. I was there! Then there were four of us in the room. And you go crazy. I run out of the room to call my wife to tell her what happened! (She wasn’t home!)

It was at that moment I start crying. If the doctor had come up to me and said, “One of you has to die – you or the baby.” I’d have said, “Me!” And I’d say it right now as well. I experienced the love. Then the doctor said, “Do you want to hold her?” I thought, “No, she looks slippery.” If you’ve never seen a newborn they’re like a Vaseline smeared weasel. I’m nervously holding E.T. and she reaches out and grabs my pinkie. And as she grabbed my pinkie it was as if God reached into my soul and grabbed me and said, “Fields, the love that you’re feeling right now, you times that by infinity and that’s how much more I love you.”
From Transcript of Doug Fields Message: God's Love Has Your Name On It