Monday, June 18, 2012

Here's to Dad

I heard over the weekend that Bill Hybels said that Willow Creek's church attendance is always lowest atttendance of the year on Father's Day. I wondered about ours and though that is not a pattern for us, it is typically a low attendance weekend for Eastview. I began to wonder why that is... 1. Maybe dads are more likely to request kids/families to spend time with them doing something like fishing, camping, or going away for the weekend. 2. Maybe churches have not honored father's day like we often have mother's day in the past. 3. Maybe it's just because it's the third week of June and vacations and summer activities have just kicked into full swing. I'm not sure, but I know we spent some time honoring our dads in church at each service yesterday. We borrowed the Jr. High department's "wheel of ridiculousness" and turned it into "this is my father's wheel". It is a six foot high wheel with pegs and prizes (think stand up "wheel of fortune" and we had cool dad stuff as prizes: a garden hose, fireworks, tools, grilling utensils, ties, water balloon kit, and a screwdriver set. We had fun and we celebrated our heavenly father. I celebrated father's day with some fried chicken from Popeyes (wanted it to be low key). In a way, this was kind of a remembrance of my own father (who has been gone for almost 16 years now) who loved fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and slaw...felt right to me. My oldest son joined mom, sara and I. My younger son is doing an internship in St. Louis and he texted me at 11:45 p.m. (yeah, I was already asleep) and wished me happy father's day and said he'd call tonight. It's all good, being a father is one of the hardest things I've ever done (and continue to do) and yet it is one of the great blessings of my life. That's what I was thinking yesterday...how proud of my boys I am (Here's to being a dad),how grateful that my father marked my life in so many ways (here's to my dad), how much I owe my heavenly father (here's to THE DAD)...and how I wish more dads would have been at church yesterday (here's to the Christian Dads that were). Another thing...I closer to mowing my lawn in black socks and shorts than I care to admit...soon

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