the love of a father

My friend Natalie always has something interesting to say on her blog. She is full of Godly advice and thoughts towards life. And she just wrote this post as a letter to future dads of daughters.

I'm a lucky girl, you see, because I grew up with a dad just like the one she described in her letter. My dad loves my mother. They have shown us kids what a good marriage is supposed to look like. My dad said the other day that they don't necessarily have a perfect marriage, and I looked at him and said "if you're marriage isn't perfect, Dad, then what's wrong with it?"

And he couldn't think of anything for a very long time. I smirked and sat back a little in the ski lift, and then he kind of half laughed, "Well, I thought of something but it's really dumb and you're gonna look at me like 'really? that's it?'"

"Go on," I said, "just tell me."

"I wish your mom would come skiing with me."

I know that because we are humans and we are inherently flawed so nothing is really perfect, but if my parents don't have a perfect marriage then I want to know what a perfect marriage is. My dad has definitely set the bar high for what I think a good marriage should be and how I think I should be treated by my future husband.

In addition to loving my mother, my dad has made sure to spend time with me. To invest in my life, know what's going on with me, and do stuff that's just the two of us. The older I get the more I appreciate the role he played in my life, even when sometimes I just wanted him to back off during my teen years.

My dad has always made it known that I can talk to him about anything (well, almost anything you know, there are those things that you really can only talk to mom about haha). He takes care of me, and he and my mom have made sure to raise us "in the way that we should go", so that when we are on our own we will know which path to choose. I really honestly couldn't have asked for a better dad. Or mom.

I was disciplined when I needed it, loved when I didn't deserve it, and cared for all of my life. They invested time in me, built up my self esteem, taught me responsibility and independence, and showed me the love of Jesus. My parents love me, trust me, tease me, and hug me, but most of all they are there for me no matter what decisions I make in life or what I choose to do and they always will be.

My parents are truly wonderful people and their kids are ridiculously lucky to have grown up in the environment we did. My parents aren't perfect, but they're pretty close.

Just, you know, that darn pump house.