Letter to Daddy

Dear Micah and Liam -

It’s Father’s Day, 2010, and I want to tell you something about the amazing man that you have the privilege of calling “Daddy”.

Of all the decisions I’ve made in my life, save the one where I dedicated my life to God, choosing to marry your father was the absolute best one. There are so many reasons why he is the right choice for me as a partner, but that’s another letter. This is the time to focus on why he is the best father for the two of you.

10. He lets you be who you are. While I’m more concerned with milestones and developmental markers, your dad is more concerned with letting the true Liam and the true Micah shine true.

9. He’s not afraid of disciplining you. But he doesn’t go overboard; instead, he uses it to shape you as young people, so that you learn valuable boundaries.

8. He wants you to be citizens of the world. Your daddy is passionate about being green, supporting companies that are kind to people and the environment, and doing what we can to protect the earth that God has blessed us with. In other words, he’s making sure you have a great world in which to grow up in and eventually raise your own family.

7. He wants you to be well-rounded. He wants to introduce you to new things, new people, new places. One of the things he is best at is adjusting to life wherever he lands, and I know that he is working hard to instill that same thing in you.

6. He’s living a little bit of his childhood again through you, which makes him very understanding. He likes to watch Disney movies to you, take you to Disney, talk to you about cars and trucks. He’s meeting you where you are, and enjoying every minute of it.

5. He wants you to learn about Jesus. It was your daddy’s idea to get Micah his first Bible when he was just over a year old, and we’ll soon get one for Micah. He’s the one that sensed that starting you that young with the Bible was one of the best things we could do for you and he was right. Micah, you now cherish that reading and love picking out which Bible story we’ll read each night. Liam, I know you’ll soon know the same joy.

4. He loves showing you off to other people. The joy he finds in you is written all over his face when he introduces you to new people, or shows you off to people who haven’t seen you in a while. He’s proud of who you, how much you’re learning, and how fast you’re growing.

3. He loves your mother, and he’s not afraid to show that and speak of it. In doing so, he’s not only modeling what it means to be a great husband, but what it means to love in general, because real love isn’t afraid to make an occasional public display and it’s not afraid to be honest. Your dad is the best model of this that I know.

2. He loves you with all of his heart. I can see it in the way that he plays with you, takes you places, even watches you during children’s time at church. Visible love is a unique gift to offer your children, and your father gives it to you in spades.

1. He genuinely likes you. If they’re good parents, dads can say that they love their children. That almost always comes with the territory. But only when they’re great parents, can dads say that they like their children.

And you can tell that he likes you by the amount of time that he chooses to spend with you.

So what I want you to know is that you are truly blessed. Really and truly. And I believe that God chose you to be his children for a reason. He needs you and you need him, and on this Father’s Day, I am grateful on your behalf for the wonderful man I get to call husband and you get to call Daddy.

We love you, Daddy!

Mommy