A Good Dad

Last night, I sat across the room watching as all three kids climbed happily onto Daniel's lap to read a simple story (it was Jack's turn to pick the book out) before bed. They were eager and happy and, yes, a bit rambunctious.

Only those of you with children know that having reached this point of pajamas on, teeth brushed, and the toilet used one last time for the evening is never a simple or effortless feat. Keep in mind that the day began long before 6am for this particular dad (I must mention that his lack of sleep was due to my poor sleeping throughout that proceeding muggy night), involved hosting & training about 15 student leaders from 10am until around 5pm and helping me clean the house before and after said gathering, and then consider that he still had a couple hours of work before him in preparation for this morning's church service, and you've got yourself a man who has every excuse for abbreviating the bedtime process.

Reading a book like Moo, Baa, And LaLaLa seemed like the perfect thing to eliminate for the sake of sanity, and I told him I thought so.

His response?

The school semester is about to begin; evenings at home and bedtimes that include him will soon be less rather than more; he didn't want to miss this chance.

And so that silly book was read and re-read, children laughing and pointing and generally making a ruckus that would have been irresistible had we not been so exhausted. (Jackson's favorite part is the pigs singing La-La-La and so that page gets repeated a lot.) Then three kids went climbing up the stairs-- or maybe it was Daniel climbing while they all hung from his arms and shoulders and neck-- and, blessedly, it wasn't long before I could hear that they were all tucked in. Shortly, the soft hum of Daniel reading aloud the next part in our current "chapter book," the original and unabridged Peter Pan, came drifting down the stairs.


Daniel's a really, really good dad.

You might just think I'm biased toward him, but actually, I can be very hard on the people closest to me. (This is one of my most regrettable faults.) Even so, I can't think of a single time I've ever considered his fathering and found it to be lacking. In fact, watching him care for, train, and enjoy our children never ceases to challenge and inspire me.

I am hard-pressed to recall a time when he has raised his voice at Gabriel or Brownyn or Jackson. (Believe me, they've given him many reasons why raising his voice might seem incredibly justified.) Early on in Gabriel's life he asked me to, when he's around, let him do the discipline because he felt he needed to be the one personally leading this area of our children's shaping and molding-- and he has stayed true to this decision. Meals often mean little eating and more food-cutting, milk-pouring, child-training, and clean-up for him than anything else, but I've never heard him complain. He changes diapers, applies band-aids, brushes hair, wrestles the boys, dresses baby dolls, and faithfully hangs the millions of drawings from Gabriel above his desk.

Daniel works exhausting days and lots of long evenings but still insists on spending every minute he can giving me as much of a break as he can manage from the kids. And one of the amazing things to me is that he doesn't just take care of the kids to bless me: he really and truly and sincerely and with all his heart loves them and loves being with them.

They love being with him, too. And, honestly, there isn't a doubt in my mind that they will always love being with him, because his fathering doesn't have an ounce of "what's in it for me" and is entirely about them and how he can be true to the call of God on his life as a dad.


I guess as I thought again about how I am so blessed by and proud of Daniel's fathering, I decided I wanted to try to write it down. It's hard to capture in words, though, that's for sure.

It seems the best we can do at summing such things up is to say things like, "He's the best dad in the world!" and celebrate Father's Day once a year. But that hardly seems like enough. Not for someone who truly demonstrates the heart of a Heavenly Father so faithfully and lovingly and consistently.

So maybe it really does come down to offering those simple Thanks. And then knowing that one day he'll receive a reward unlike anything that can be given here on earth.


*The above picture wasn't a bit staged. They were all smiling and laughing hysterically because they'd just read about the pigs. You know... the ones who sing instead of saying, "Oink."