Not Just Another Number

It is, once again, September 6. Thank you, that did take a lot of hard work to put together.

This day is also my birthday, number 38 to be exact. I have heard people say that after 21 it's just a number. Or maybe it's after 25? But what about 30 and 40? And some people have their golden birthday after 25, so what about that?

Any way, 38 is not just another number for me, it's a very meaningful number with a bit of stickiness to it. Sticky as in messy, because my dad was killed in a trucking accident when he was 38 years old. I was about five weeks from turning 4 years old. My oldest son, Sawyer, is 6 years old. And so I write, through trembling hands, knowing that he has had more from me than I had from my dad.

And I'm just getting started. I'm only improving, growing, and learning how to be the best dad I can possibly be. I better be because I have a third son on the way, and boys, especially my nutty boys,  need their dad. In fact, our society needs to be fathered into becoming a new kind of society, but that message is for another day.

My dad didn't choose to die when he did, his life was taken, so I am not speaking with arrogance when I say that I am just getting started. I say that because God is fathering me into becoming a new kind of dad each day. Every day. So I feel like I'm just getting started. And although I don't like to think about it or talk about it much, my mom and dad were divorced when he died. Some of his choices kept him from seeing me and raising me in the short years he had with me.

So, without going into more detail here about all that, I'll just stick with saying how incredibly grateful I am for this day. I am blessed beyond imagination with a strong, beautiful wife who has the strength to climb a mountain, while drinking tea and changing a diaper, yet she has zero interest in manipulating that strength to go it alone. She chooses to walk with me, committed to raising these Harrison boys together, which of course includes raising me at times. She's impressive. Don't act like you're not impressed ;-)

Sawyer Dale, Eli John, and boy number 3, you have a dad. A goofy, bald dad who loves you so much that sometimes I hug and kiss you until you're thoroughly annoyed. Deal with it.

With much Grace and Peace.