Day 8,500 (give or take) of being “Dad”.
June 18th, 2017 was a blessed day. Not because it was Sunday, but because I got “Happy Father’s Day” text messages from both of my boys. And each text had its own personality. I started reading the text from Austin (oldest) right before church started and I had to stop reading after just a couple of sentences because I knew it was going to take an emotional toll on me and I was about to lead worship for two services. Tyler (youngest) sent his Father’s Day text later that evening. They were both emotional because my boys moved away this summer. Austin has moved away for the foreseeable future to give up a long distance relationship in favor of dating his “bae” in the same town (Memphis…Tennessee…2 states to the east…ten hours by car). Tyler moved near Lake City, Colorado to work maintenance at a camp all summer (two states to the west…20 hours by car).
Austin graduated from Houston Baptist University on May 13th. Holly (my wife) cried on the way home after graduation lunch even though Austin would not actually move until June 3rd. I was not feeling the emotions just yet, but I drove Tyler to Colorado the next day on May 14th. On the way back from Colorado on May 16th the tears started to flow. I got teary-eyed leaving Tyler at the camp and the tears came intermittently for the next few hours until I had to pull over because I could no longer see through the flood of tears and the full on “ugly cry”.
I kept asking myself “What is your problem? He’ll be back mid-August!” Then I realized that it wasn’t just about Tyler. It was about grieving the loss of fatherhood. Oh, I know that I will continue to be a father for a long time, Lord willing. But coupled with Austin’s departure this was the ending of an era.
And that has caused me to reflect on fatherhood. Specifically “intentional” fatherhood. The kind of fatherhood where you determine early on that you want to raise the bar set by your father. And the bar set by his father. And I want my boys to raise the bar again. As a matter of fact Austin’s text included “You have set the bar of fatherhood so high and I cannot wait to try and top it.” Tyler said “I couldn’t have a better role model…” I love that they want to model fatherhood even better than their old man.
Somewhere along this path, with the help of people who poured into my life, I realized that marriage and parenthood don’t just happen. I wanted to be “intentional” about both of those incredibly important things in my life. And if I had another lifetime and could know what I know now, I would be even MORE intentional than I was in this lifetime.
I love the synonyms for the word “intentional”:
deliberate, calculated, conscious, intended, planned, meant, studied, knowing, willful, purposeful, purposive, done on purpose, premeditated, preplanned, preconceived.
For the most part, I tried to “plan” and “premeditate” how I wanted to be a father. I “studied” what it meant to be a father (thank you Promise Keepers among many others). I was “deliberate” in spending quality time with my boys (and my wife!). I was “purposeful” about creating memories for my boys. I was “calculated” in those “teachable moments” about godly manhood. I was “conscious” of my example around them.
But it was all because of God’s grace. And the beautiful thing about God’s grace is that even though I failed many times in this endeavor, my boys have shown that “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8 NLT).