I would like to tell you a little about myself and what has made me... me. I was brought into the world by two great parents. I am fortunate that my parents have stayed together over the years. This is something that is fleeting in this day and age. My mother and father showed my sisters (Chesney and Whitney) and I what great parents look like. Dad coached both of my sisters softball teams, taught me to hit a golf ball, took us fishing, and all the other stuff that you think of when you think of a dad. Mom always had dinner ready for us when we would come home from a long day and she always had a hug and a word of advice for us when we needed it (sometimes when we didn't need it). She and dad would take us out for Sunday drives after church. As much as I thought that I hated those drives then, I love them even more today.
The thing that showed me the most love from my parents were the boundaries set by them. We knew what was right and what was wrong. I found my self on the wrong end of mom's wooden spoon more than once. Mama, as I call her to this day, always followed up with a hug and let me know that she still loved me even though I had crossed the boundaries. My dad, or Pop, has this way of making his eyebrows contort into a triangle. It is as if he can change his eyebrows into a perfect set of jack-o-lantern eyes. This was all I needed to see to know that I needed to stop my mouth or my actions that second. I would have hated to see what would have happened if he made it to the point of a jack-o-lantern smile. All of this was done with love, caring, and grace.
My parents are good Christians that love God and raised me to love God. This is where things get hard for me to write. I did not always love Him. I turned my back on Him in my late teens and through my early twenties. These were years in my life that I did not feel the love of God, not because He did not love me, but because I did not love Him. I look back today and know how foolish I was. Here is the easy part for me to write. God has shown His mercy, grace, and love to me. We read in Isaiah about seeking God and calling on Him to show us grace and mercy. "6 Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on them, and to our God, for He will freely pardon." Isaiah 55:6-7. How powerful is that message for those of us who had or have strayed from the narrow path. It took a four year old little girl named Ella for me to see this and God did some serious pardoning for this guy.
That little girl is now my 9 year old step-daughter. I never use that term as I really really dislike it. She is my daughter!!! I love Ella Grace with all of my heart and am so glad that she came into my life. Her mother, my wife, Janee and I met at work and I knew from the moment that we started talking to each other that she was it. Now, it took me almost a year and a half of working with her to start that first conversation, but once I did the rest was history. In our marriage, we have had two children: Max- at two and a half, and Emeree- now seven months. This is a picture of my family and me just a few days after Emeree was born. I will be writing more about all three of my kiddos in future posts, so I won't go into detail about them here and now. I can say that it is my one goal, as a father, to give my children the knowledge and tools to make it to Heaven. I also want to do all of the crazy stuff with them too... Like roller coasters, softball, baseball, camping,slap a bull on the rump... Well, maybe not that last one.
This is my DARE to you: Look your children straight in the eyes today and tell them how much you love them.
