A Tribute to Him

It all started the day my big brother was born. February 6th, 1987, I believe. Through the years my mother has told me the story over and over again of how my father took one look at the tiny new human, my brother, and immediately went out and bought life insurance. It never gets old. Perhaps he should have thought of that sooner, some might say he was unprepared. But for me that story is the first image I have of my dad and the perfect example of how he’s loved us ever since.

There are opinions everywhere on what makes a man an excellent father. Some people are quick to state that they have the best dad in the entire world while others skirt around the subject, avoiding the opening of old wounds too heavy and hurtful to bear. My relationship with my dad is one that I hold as dearly to myself as I possibly can. We’ve had our tough moments, even ones I thought we might not come back from, but as I’ve grown up under his love and wisdom, mistakes and failures, I’ve come to see him as the deeply loving, flawed, developing father that he is.

My siblings and I grew up chasing him around the living room and clinging on for dear life as he played the part of wild dinosaur attempting to throw us from his back. We’ve laughed at his perfectly timed jokes and continue to laugh at the jokes we’ve heard 1,000 times and for some reason I still find myself hoping he will greet me at the door with a rendition of “who’s the smartest and the greatest?!” To which I laugh and respond with the appropriate answer accompanied by the always necessary eye-rolling, “dad is.”

He’s done everything you can imagine and he’s done it well. From marketing, to real-estate, to writing books and speaking, to mission work in Albania, there’s very little he can’t succeed at when he decides it’s what the Lord wants him to do. But the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen in him is the way he serves every single person that crosses his path. I spent my youth watching him offer the best of everything he had to the people around him and with a joy that’s unparalleled. From his hands and his mouth flow a constant stream of offering, sacrifice, challenging wisdom and encouragement. It’s perhaps the most inspiring and difficult thing I’ve had to embrace in my entire life; the feeling of wanting to be just like him and yet knowing he is so much more than I’ll ever be.

He has his quirks of course. I’ve spent countless hours searching for things I left on the counter as his desire for order caused him to stash our belongings somewhere random, out of the way. There is a well defined route from our kitchen to the trashcan outside created by many trips taken to retrieve backpacks absentmindedly left out. I’m still convinced my childhood blankie is rotting in a landfill somewhere because I left it in the kitchen as I ran to catch the bus. But I can’t blame my dad for wanting things orderly, if anything it’s been a trait that’s developed in my own life and one that I’m eternally grateful for.

We’ve traveled to Colorado together, climbed the great wall of China, torn up race tracks in Singapore and spent countless hours biking to Davidson for date nights and long talks on rocking chairs. He has listened to my worries, fears, desires and dreams as they’ve developed, grown, come true and vanished over the years. He’s challenged me in my thinking and sat patiently through waterfalls of tears as I struggled to express the vastness of my young heart. He’s rejoiced with me and mourned with me and in him I’ve found a human footpath to follow.

He will never be all that I need. He has failed me before and he will surely fail me again. It isn’t anything against him, it’s simply the nature of human beings and one of the many effects sin has had on this world. Relationships are broken and it is only by the blood Christ shed on the cross that my relationship with my father has even the slightest chance of looking like it was intended to be. As I look at my dad, I see a man who wants nothing more than to love God with his whole being, and love his family through the example Christ set. And it hits me that above everything else, that is what it means to be a father. His role was created to point me back to my Heavenly Father. He is a broken and dusty reflection of Christs’ love for me. So dad, you aren’t perfect but thank you for never quitting. Thank you for believing I’m worth it, for always being there to catch me, fight for me, to love me. Thanks for being the best example of Christ I could have. Your words and actions have irrevocably shaped my life. I love you.