Since I Didn’t Get Him a Card . . .

I’m working during a short, late nap here, so I don’t have time to tell you all the things I’ve been thinking about over the last week (like the Britax Boulevard and visiting family and passed fitness goals and why the Kingdom keeps slipping into my conversations), so I’ll just tell you the most time-sensitive one:

Happy (late) Father’s Day!

. . . to the fathers who frequent For the Record and especially to Chris, who, in case you don’t know, is the father of that little cutie we feature here on a regular basis, Caelyn. (Incidentally, he’s also my husband.)

Our church is launching a new non-profit organization called Parenting Alone, which will provide resources, child care, counseling, and other assistance to single parents. (IBC already has a substantial single parenting ministry, but Parenting Alone is envisioned as something nondenominational and outside of the church that will hopefully grow into multiple store-fronts across the country.)

This past Sunday, they introduced the idea to the congregation via a video of IBC women sharing the pain and struggles they faced after going through a divorce with children. (Of course, not all single parents are divorcees and not all single parents are women. Some parents even start out as single parents. The peolpe on this video just happened to be divorced women. No matter the case, I’d guess that facing parenthood on your own isn’t easy. I think it’s downright terrifying for a lot of people.) Even though I’ve never been a single parent, these women’s stories stirred something in my heart for them and other parents like them, and they made me think about my own life, particularly back to before Caelyn was born when I worked at a biblical counseling ministry in North Dallas.

It didn’t take many required Monday afternoon devotionals at my former place of employment for me to discover that I was in the minority amongst the employees — not by race or ethnicity or religious beliefs, but by home life. The majority of the men and women who worked with me grew up in broken and/or abusive homes. Those who did know about Jesus early on refused for years to believe in a God who allowed evil like they’d experienced first-hand. Most of the women were divorced after having been married to unfaithful or unstable men. Several of my coworkers’ stories included addiction or suicide attempts.

The brokenness they’d known in the past had brought them to work at a place where they thought they could help other people find the hope they’d found. This was especially true of the marketing team, where I worked as a writer/editor and was one of two who didn’t have this kind of baggage. The other was a doctoral seminary student, a year or two older than me.

When the women on my team threw me a baby shower, they talked about how remarkable it was that Caelyn was coming into a family with a mother and father who loved Jesus and already loved her and would be committed to being stable and reliable constants in her life. Sometimes sentiments like that can feel cliché, even if they’re not. But knowing these ladies’ stories, I knew that they weren’t using the word “miraculous” lightly.

Sitting in church with all these thoughts and stories swirling in my heart made me even more grateful for my own dad and for Chris. The practical reasons he’s good to have around are pretty obvious — I get to stay at home and not work. I have someone to help out when I’m too tired to keep going. I get to send him down the stairs to carry up the groceries. I have someone to clean up the throw up when it inevitably happens. I don’t have to make every crucial parenting decision on my own. I don’t have to worry alone about all the little and big things parents usually end up worrying about. But there’s more to it than that.

I have a beautiful daughter, whom I love deeply, whose father is gentle, loyal, and hard-working. A father whom I trust implicitly with her person, her mind, and her heart. It can be easy to forget how rare and special that really is. It’s even easier to forget to say thank you for it.