A Good Father.

“A good father is one of the most unsung,
unpraised, unnoticed and yet
one of the most valuable assets in our society.”
– Billy Graham

This past Christmas, our second born was delighted to receive a Daisy pellet gun from her grandparents. Yes, it was something she was hoping for!!

 

 

After a long, lengthy and serious drawn out safety-lesson with her grandpa and dad, she’s been anxiously waiting to get out and practice with her new gun…

This week, her dad and Lyla spent some time outdoors practicing – a definite highlight for our energetic daughter, whose love language is most certainly quality time.

 

{turns out, she has great aim and I think she hit her target every time!}

 

While, 10 years after becoming parents,  Abby and I still working on getting this parenting thing right, I’m thankful today for a man who takes time for his five daughters. It doesn’t mean he has the luxury of loads of time to spend at home, long days off or an easy career choice (a funeral director is a very demanding job – something hard to explain to the general public), the moments he spends with his girls is quality time. Lyla – and her sisters – are blessed to call him daddy. When he has a day off,  the day’s schedule changes and we try to spend as much family time together as possible.

 

It seems, as mothers and wives, it is all too easy to complain and see the faults in our husbands (when the Bible so clearly states to look at the beam in our own eye first!) …  perhaps, we should make more of an effort to encourage our husbands daily – to say thank you more often, to be grateful for the hard workers they are, the good examples they are trying to set for their children. It’s not easy being a dad in this society – the world pulls them away, drags them into stressful work situations and constantly tries to take their precious time away with the anxiety and worries and trivial pleasures of the world.  Just lately, we have unofficially seen a rise in suicides of men in their late 30s and 4os. Perhaps they are burned out, stressed out, tired, exhausted and distant from their children and families.

But if these husbands of ours are really trying to be the fathers they need to be, we, as women, need to say thank you and appreciate their effort.

 

 

I am not preaching to the world, but to myself.

 

It’s time more men step up and become godly fathers. But it’s also time more wives support them with love and respect. The rewards will be eternal.