About 12:03am this morning, just as Tiff and I were getting ready to go to sleep, she looked at me and said, "Happy Father's Day." With a smile, I said, "thank you and I love you for making me a father."
As I wrote in my posting, 25 Things About Me, "Being a dad is the coolest thing I've ever been blessed to do." I remember the day Ethan was born (I wore a Superman tee-shirt given me by Tiff's mom at the baby shower!) and having that profound sense of awe knowing my life would never be the same. How true! As I watched my little guy swim yesterday at a friend's house (I've also blogged on teaching him to swim), I could not help but think about how proud I am that he is who he is and the incomparable love I feel for him and his mother.
I am also grateful this Father's Day for the fatherly love in my life. I have been blessed with a loving father, grandfathers, and now step-father. Their examples in my life have helped me consider how to handle situations with my own son as what to do. From dealing with simple life-lessons to how to handle bullies, I can draw upon my own life experience with the father-figures in my life for how I should love and lead my own son.
I say these glowing things about the father-figures in my life, but they were not perfect. I also realize I am not perfect, either. I strive to be perfect and do the best I can, but I need divine help to meet me where I cannot go. On this Father's Day, I know I must draw upon the love of God to fill in the gaps of my own experience and that in my relationship with Ethan. I turn to God -- though not often enough -- for help in doing and being the best I can be for my family. It can be scary to think of how far I have to go, but it's also inspiring to see how far I've come. It more or less falls into the category of elephant-eating instructions, I take it one bite at a time.
Though I only have a linear sense of time, I know that God has a vertical sense of time that is grounded in love. He does not want us to fear and he does not want us to worry. He has given us the supreme example of love that we might know his eternal concern and desire for us to know Him as our heavenly father. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8, "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."
Regardless of your life's impressions of father, may you come to know just how deeply God loves you. Dads aren't perfect, but our Lord is. He can, and will help you, if you give Him the chance. So if you never have before, allow this Father's Day to be one of a new and profound awareness of God's presence in your life.
As I wrote in my posting, 25 Things About Me, "Being a dad is the coolest thing I've ever been blessed to do." I remember the day Ethan was born (I wore a Superman tee-shirt given me by Tiff's mom at the baby shower!) and having that profound sense of awe knowing my life would never be the same. How true! As I watched my little guy swim yesterday at a friend's house (I've also blogged on teaching him to swim), I could not help but think about how proud I am that he is who he is and the incomparable love I feel for him and his mother.
I am also grateful this Father's Day for the fatherly love in my life. I have been blessed with a loving father, grandfathers, and now step-father. Their examples in my life have helped me consider how to handle situations with my own son as what to do. From dealing with simple life-lessons to how to handle bullies, I can draw upon my own life experience with the father-figures in my life for how I should love and lead my own son.
I say these glowing things about the father-figures in my life, but they were not perfect. I also realize I am not perfect, either. I strive to be perfect and do the best I can, but I need divine help to meet me where I cannot go. On this Father's Day, I know I must draw upon the love of God to fill in the gaps of my own experience and that in my relationship with Ethan. I turn to God -- though not often enough -- for help in doing and being the best I can be for my family. It can be scary to think of how far I have to go, but it's also inspiring to see how far I've come. It more or less falls into the category of elephant-eating instructions, I take it one bite at a time.
Though I only have a linear sense of time, I know that God has a vertical sense of time that is grounded in love. He does not want us to fear and he does not want us to worry. He has given us the supreme example of love that we might know his eternal concern and desire for us to know Him as our heavenly father. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8, "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."
Regardless of your life's impressions of father, may you come to know just how deeply God loves you. Dads aren't perfect, but our Lord is. He can, and will help you, if you give Him the chance. So if you never have before, allow this Father's Day to be one of a new and profound awareness of God's presence in your life.
“Every father should remember that one day his [child] will follow his
example instead of his advice.”
~ Source Unknown.
Happy Father's Day!
1 comment:
First Post!!
How true and well put. Not a father yet, but will be eventually and I continue to look to my Father and father figures for advice. But their advice is 2nd only to Gods word.
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