“You want to be the one on the court the whole game, not just at halftime.” Words from my father as he was encouraging me to try out for basketball. I thought to myself, “That sounds like a great idea.” I declined the pom-pom squad position and the next day he taught me how to […]
A father can be a forever friend, especially to a girl who is wildly crazy about him. The love of a good father brings security and satisfaction. It teaches a child that an even greater Father loves them and can be trusted with their very soul. I know, because I had that kind of dad, […]
A few days ago, I was watching a TV show with my 16-year-old son while mom and our youngest were preoccupied with activities in other rooms. We typically mute the ads, but for some reason one of us (Dad) was not paying attention. A Public Service Announcement (PSA) came on featuring a dad playing a […]
My dad is someone I aspire to be like. When I was younger, he raised us with tough love. As my siblings and I grew older, we appreciated it because we see how it molded us into good people and we respect him so much more because of that. Now that my siblings and I […]
He buoyed me as a child to build my skills and confidence. When I was in the throes of adolescent struggle, he kept me going forward. He taught me not to lose my motivation, to reset my attitude to good, to try again the next day, even as I faced challenges and many failures.
There are so many parenting books about how to be a good father and yet there is only one mark of parenting that we often forget: the art of showing up. Simply arriving with your hands and heart open to whatever your child needs.
They all remember his kindness, his compassion and the love that he would show others. It is always remarkable to me and it serves as a check in my own spirit. If I received ten percent of these traits from my father I am blessed beyond measure.
“Rejoice in your suffering” sounds great on paper, but it’s not easy to dance between the raindrops. Yet, that’s what we’re called to do.
If there is one thing about me that people can find likeable, it would be that. I inherited that trait from my father.
I want to thank my dad for giving me the opportunity to get to know myself and develop into the woman I am today.
In the movie, The Father Effect, John Finch shares his story about his dad’s suicide and how he wasn’t aware for many years of the impact this would have on his life. The searching, the emptiness, the hurt and anger he felt because his father was absent, having chosen suicide over facing his fear and […]
My father was always an avid gardener. I think his Irish blood called to the earth in much the same way his own grandfather’s had. One of my earliest memories is standing barefoot in the freshly tilled soil, my hands blackened from digging in the ground, still a bit cold from the turning. As a […]
It’s tough to be a good dad these days. Our modern society places demands on fathers that our own parents could never have imagined. Things were much simpler then or so they seemed anyway. I grew up in a two-parent family where my dad went to work and my mom stayed home. Conversations around the […]
My definition of the perfect father, in no particular order, is this: a man who — loves his kids more than his job; who has a desiring-to-interact-on-a-willing-basis kind of attitude; who teaches, by example, the way to be a godly man; who doesn’t yell, but rather takes the time to explain consequences of bad choices; […]