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When I had boys I was scared to death.  Growing up there was just my sister and I, and most of the boys I knew at church were wild.  In fact, quite a few left the church as soon as they could.  I just knew I would never be able to raise good boys.

I had never reckoned with Keith.  He was determined to raise those boys “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”  He never expected me to do it alone, and he started when they were young.  Even if he could not nurse them, he got up when they cried in the night and brought them to me.  He often sat there talking to them while they nursed, when he could have been sleeping, so they would early on associate both our voices with that comforting process.

Every evening he gave them their baths so I would have enough uninterrupted time to do the things I needed to do—wash the evening dishes, finish folding the laundry, and other necessary things.  A few times he sent me out right after the afternoon nursing to “do whatever you want,” while he sat with them, usually playing or reading to them.  Other times I would hear their voices wafting through the kitchen window, singing about the “wee little man.” while he held them up on the lowest limb of “the Zaccheus tree,” a sapling in the backyard

Play usually involved acting out Bible stories.  It was so handy that Daddy was bigger than they, so he could be Goliath, or “the big fish,” swallowing them up by covering them with his body until they had prayed for “three days and nights.”  As they grew older, the play became more spirited.  “Let’s play ‘roll and wrestle,’ Daddy,” was followed by thumps and giggles, and muffled shrieks of laughter as they took turns tackling Daddy in the middle of the living room floor and then rolling around as far as they could without knocking something over.  They never knew that Daddy was watching out for the furniture and carefully moderating his strength so he would not hurt them.  They just knew that Daddy would get down in the floor and play with them whenever they asked him to.

My favorite snapshot from those days is the one I took standing in the front door looking down on three mud-covered bodies.  It was summer and a soft, warm rain made it perfect for a mud fight.  They went out and had the time of their lives, then knocked on the front door.  I opened it to see Nathan on Keith’s shoulders and Lucas standing just in front of his legs, head about waist high, all three shirtless in grungy, mud-spattered cut-offs.  I think.  I did see three sets of eyes and grinning white teeth somewhere in all that brown mud.  Clean-up was just as much fun since it involved using a hose before they could even step inside the house.

He didn’t just involve himself in their fun.  He taught them how to work, how to be gentlemen, and how to study the Bible, among other manly pursuits.  

Keith started being a dad before those boys were even born, and has kept it up.  He was not above changing diapers.  In fact, one of his own original sayings is that if a Dad cannot change the messy diapers, he won’t be much use in later years when the messes of life afflict his children either.  

Keith will tell you that 90% of the convicted felons who sit across the desk from him did not have fathers in their homes.  He does not bother to check out what kind of father, or whether the marriage was a good one.  That makes that little fact even more important.  Even the mere presence of a father can make a huge difference.  Imagine the difference it would make if he were really trying to be a good one.

Dads, you know what you need to do today.  The buck stops at you.

Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, Eph 6:4.

Dene Ward

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            I can hardly believe it, but Silas has started school.  When he found out he had to go back the second week, he said, “You mean I have to go again?!”

            “Yes,” his mother told him, “there is a lot to learn.”

            “But I already learned,” he said, sure that now he would get to stay home with her and his little brother.  Of course, he found out otherwise quickly.

            I know that no one would say it out loud, but sometimes I get the feeling some of my brothers and sisters have the same attitude.  “I already learned!” which is supposed to justify their never studying for a Bible class, never attending an extra Bible study, never darkening the meetinghouse doors for anything but the Lord’s Supper, as if it were a magic potion that would save them that week regardless of anything else they did.  What they have “learned” are usually the pet scriptures, the catchphrases, the simplistic theories that try to explain away the profound depth of the Scriptures—all those things that smack so much of a denominational mindset.

            I have amazing women in my Bible classes, and let me tell you, most of them are neither young nor new Christians.  These are women of a certain age, as we often say, who have sat on pews for longer than many others have been alive, yet they see the value in learning still more. 

            And that does not necessarily mean learning something new.  Sometimes the learning has more to do with a deeper comprehension, uncovering another level of wisdom, or an additional way of applying a fact to one’s life, leading to a changed behavior or attitude.  When I see someone in their later years actually change their lives because of a discovery made in Bible class, I am reminded yet again of the power of the Word.  The most amazing thing about this living and active Word, is that if you are not blinded by self-satisfaction, every time you study it you can see something new.  It’s like peeling an onion—you keep finding another layer underneath.

            You may have “already learned” a great many things, but if that is your attitude, you will never grow beyond the boundaries you have placed upon yourself with that notion.  Like a kindergartner who has learned his letters and numbers, you will be stuck in the basics, the “first principles,” and never come to a fuller comprehension of the magnitude of God’s wisdom and His plan for you.  If you are still deciding how long to keep a preacher based upon how much you “enjoy” his preaching and how many times he visited you in the hospital, if you are mouthing things like “I never heard of such a thing” or “I am (or am not) comfortable with that,” with not a scripture reference in sight, you still have a long way to go. 

            God wants meat-eaters at His banquet.  That means you need to chew a little harder and longer.  Yes, it takes time away from recess to sit in class and learn some more.  Yes, you have to process some new information which may not be as comfortable as you are used to.  Your brain may even ache a little, but that is how you learn, by stretching those mental muscles instead of vegetating on the pew.

            You may think you have “already learned,” but I bet you even my kindergartner grandson will have figured out very shortly that there is a whole lot more he needs to know.  He’s pretty smart for five.  How about you?

 Whom will he teach knowledge? and whom will he make to understand the message? them that are weaned from the milk…Isa 28:9.

Wherefore leaving the doctrine of the first principles of Christ, let us press on unto perfection…Heb 6:1.

Dene Ward

            Did you see the video going around of the mother goose leading her babies up a set of two stone steps somewhere in an urban center?  (She might have been a duck, but I am not a poultry expert and it suits my purposes here to call her a goose.)  Those steps were twice as high as those goslings.  At first the mother waddled on, but soon she realized she was alone so she returned to the steps and watched as each baby leapt to the top of the next step over and over and over—and usually fell back.  It took no less than five or six tries per step for each one, and some many more.  The last little fellow almost had it but then fell onto his back, exhausted.  Did he give up?  No, he got up and kept on trying, and finally, several minutes after all the others had made it, he got to the top of the second step and ran to his mother, who then turned and led her tiny gaggle across the plaza.

            That mother had it easier than you and I do.  She had no hands and arms to be tempted to reach out and help.  All she could do was patiently wait, honking her encouragement.  Too many times we use those hands and arms when we shouldn’t, thinking we are doing the right thing, and our children grow up emotionally frail in the process, with a warped sense of their place in the world—usually the center, they think.

            What would have happened if you had never let go of those little hands as your toddler tried his first steps?  What would have happened if, when he tried to climb, you always came along, picked him up and put him where he was trying to go?  What would happen now if every time something wasn’t exactly the way he wanted it, you came along and made it that way?  Sooner or later he must find out that the world does not run to his schedule not his set of likes and dislikes, and the earlier he learns that the less painful it will be for all of you.

            In his work, Keith has come across many young people who finally found out that their parents could not get them out of trouble as they were hauled off to prison in manacles.  Once, a nineteen-year-old probationer thought he could bypass some of the rules of his sentence, namely his officer checking to see if he was home where he belonged, because “I have a mean dog.”

            “Lock him up,” Keith said.  “That’s your responsibility because I will be doing my job, which is your punishment for your crime.  If you don’t, I have authority to stop the dog any way it takes.”

            “Bbbbbbut you can’t hurt my dog,” he blubbered.

            “YOU will be hurting your dog,” his officer told him, and finally got through.  He did the crime because he thought he could get away with it—mama and daddy had always gotten him out of trouble before.  Now he had to pay the consequences.  I wonder if his parents ever did make him do something he did not want to do as a child. 

            God gave those goslings a goose, a mother who would stand there and patiently wait while her children tried and learned and grew stronger even with their failures.  He gave a goose who would honk her encouragement when they fell flat on their backs, urging them with “love” to get up and try again.

            Some parents don’t have the sense God gave a goose when they raise their children.  What do you think will happen if you fix every problem and adjust every situation to their liking?  As adults they will be persistently dissatisfied and miserable, or constantly in trouble and probably devoid of true friends who are tired of always having to do things their way.  Certainly love them, but “learn” to love them in the hard things (Titus 2:4).  Teach them, discipline them, tell them they can do it and cheer them on.  Add a more “tactile” form of exhortation when necessary.  Give them words of encouragement, of admonishment, of rebuke, of love.  That is why God gave them parents instead of a goose.

Hear, O sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching…My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. Proverbs 4:1-2,20-21

Dene Ward

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It was almost amusing when it happened. 

            Many years ago at one of the congregations where Keith preached, one of the older men made it a point to say to him, “I know you are a hard worker.  But you still have children at home.  You need to make sure you spend time with them.” 

            We appreciated that.  Keith was a hard worker, spending at least 30 hours a week with the Word, just as Paul told Timothy and Titus they needed to be doing as young evangelists, plus the four hours preaching and teaching in the assembly every week, and then holding Bible studies, usually in the evenings, with interested people, or looking for more interested folks as he passed out flyers and meeting announcements, sent out and graded correspondence courses, and wrote articles in the local paper.  I often met him at the local pond loaded down with old towels and blankets, especially in the winter, for a baptism.  He seldom worked less than 60 hours a week.

            Yet not long afterward, the same man’s wife came up to him and scolded him because he had missed putting an article in the paper the week we moved from one house to another.  Everything else was done, but something had to give that week, and he preferred that one article not be written rather than his boys not have time with their father.

            I fear too many churches are more like the wife of that couple than the husband.  Especially if a man is supported mainly by other churches, the pressure is felt, even if it isn’t applied.  Then there are the men who do not even need that pressure to avoid their obligations at home, using the same excuse  Here is what Jesus had to say about that. 

            And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' But you say, 'If a man tells his father or his mother, "Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban"' (that is, given to God)-- then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do."  Mark 7:9-13.

            Those people got out of their financial obligations to their elderly parents by claiming their money was “given to God,” whether or not it ever actually made it to the Temple coffers! 

            “And many such things you do,” Jesus tacked on the end of that. .”  As long as you can say you are using it for God, whatever “it” is, you don’t have to give it to anyone else.  Tell me that saying your time is given to God (Corban) so it’s all right if you don’t spend enough of it with your children to teach them basic skills of life, to discuss the Word of God “when you walk and talk,” to just listen to their childish concerns and give them the fatherly wisdom they crave, or enough time to nurture your relationship with the wife whom you have come to take for granted, aren’t “such things.

            I have seen old pioneer preachers lauded for sacrificing their family lives to go off for months at a time to preach the gospel.  I am not sure the Lord would have been among their admirers.  If they were single, fine, but choosing to have a family places other obligations on you.  Isn’t that what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7?  I would rather you be like me (single) so you do not have the obligations that having a family puts on you, duties which God does expect you to fulfill.  Paul certainly didn’t say those obligations were negated by spiritual things.

            Churches need to look at their preachers’ schedules for this reason:  see if he is raising his children; see if he is spending time with his wife.  The Lord made a family with both a mother and a father present in the home.  He made the woman to be a help not a substitute father.  Jesus said, “Don’t blame what you do for God as the reason you neglect your family obligations.”  He says you make void the Word of God when you do that.  Churches, do you want to be a party, or perhaps the main cause, for a man to make void the Word of God?

            And we can also say this applies to anyone who hides behind “spiritual things” to avoid his family responsibilities—he is calling his family, “Corban.”

            We call the argument about “quality time” between working mothers and their children a “myth.”  Quality time can only happen when a quantity of time is being spent.  What applies to mothers, certainly applies to fathers too.  Jesus seems to agree.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4.  Read that without the parenthetical statement—just the underlined words.

Dene Ward

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I seem to be reacting a lot lately, and here I go again. 

            I understand that the divorce rate in this country is atrocious.  I understand that this insidious practice of hard-hearted men has even infected God’s people, just as it did thousands of years ago.  But I think it is time we fought it in a different way.  Telling our children that Christians are leaving their mates by the score so they need to be careful is not the way to battle this ungodliness, and I will show you how I know.

            Jesus grew up in a time similar to ours.  Even among God’s people scholars argued about the acceptable reasons for divorce.  Among the very conservative, adultery was the only “scriptural cause,” while among the more liberal almost any dissatisfaction was deemed suitable.  Evidently the divorce rate was sky high because when Jesus made his pronouncement, “Whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery,” Matt 19:9, even his own disciples were shocked.  “If this is the case, it is better for a man not to marry!” they exclaimed a verse later.

            Do you see what rampant divorce triggers in the young?  Do you see how hearing the negatives warps their perspective of the way God intended people to live?  They think a happy marriage is impossible.  No wonder the world says, “You can always get out of it if it doesn’t work.”  When you grow up hearing that over 50% of all marriages fail, and that the church is just as bad, what else will you believe when you hit the first little bump in the road but, “I guess this means it’s over.”

            Everyone ought to know by now that statistics can lie.  They may be facts, but they can be skewed any which way the researcher wants to skew them.  What if we count your successful marriage, the successful marriages of two other friends, plus the marriages of Elizabeth Taylor and Zsa Zsa Gabor.  Between you all that’s 20 marriages, only three of which lasted, a 15% success rate.  Now that’s depressing unless you know who is being counted.

            Yes, over 50% of marriages in our country end in divorce, but that lumps them all in, first marriages, second, third, etc.  Let’s separate them and see if things change a little.  60% of second marriages end in divorce, and 73% of third marriages end in divorce.  And first time marriages for both parties? Only 41% end in divorce.  It is still a terrible statistic, but it is quite a bit lower than when you count in all those folks who have either failed once or shown a propensity to fail, and it means well over half of first time marriages survive.

            Some more good news:  you can actually reduce your risk.  If one set of parents is happily married, the couple’s risk decreases 14%.  (I couldn’t find statistics if both sets of parents were still married to the first spouse, but it stands to reason the risk would decrease even more.)  If the couple attended college (they don’t even have to have graduated), their risk decreases 13%.   The older they are, the less the risk until by age 25, the risk decreases 24%.  And let me add another one that just goes to show that God knew what He was talking about:  if a couple lives together before marriage, their risk of divorce increases by a whopping 40%!

            Now to those who want to mourn over the state of marriage in the church, even granting that this malady will touch us, please count how many first marriages are still intact in your congregation.  I doubt the failures are anywhere near the national average.  Simply put, when two people understand that they make a commitment not just to each other, but to God, they stand a far better chance of “making it.”  Let’s share these statistics with our young people.

            Yes, divorce exists among God’s people.  Yes, you can find bad marriages among Christians.  So let’s start nipping them in the bud.  Several times Keith and I have taught a “Preparation for Marriage” class.  We don’t sugar-coat anything.  We tell them what can go wrong and how to fix it, but we also show them how to prevent those things from happening in the first place.  We show them how to have a happy marriage from the beginning.  We impress upon them the need for seeking advice when necessary, and usually before they even think it’s necessary.  Several young couples have thanked us for the class, even after being married several years.  They knew what to look for in a mate and they know how to spot problems before they become impossible to deal with.

            And let’s also start giving our young people a reason for optimism.  You can do this!  You can live as one flesh for decades and have your love grow deeper and more meaningful with every passing year.  You can avoid the common pitfalls and make it through the trials of life.  No, it will not always be easy, but those difficulties are not a sign that your marriage is over.  They simply mean it’s time to work a little harder for awhile.

            I may be a cockeyed optimist, but do not let the pessimists out there ruin your view of marriage.  Don’t let them make you sigh along with the apostles, “It is better not to marry at all!”   God said you can do it, the two of you, living and loving together for a lifetime.  Just who do you believe anyway?

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9

All statistics come from McKinleyIrvin.com, a family law website.

Dene Ward           

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            After my herb bed gave me fits one year, Keith spent some time completely digging it out and replacing the dirt with potting soil and composted manure.  That was $90 worth of dirt!  That means I am spending a lot more time, and even more money, caring for it so the original costs won’t be wasted.

            I have gone to a real nursery to find plants, larger and more established (and more expensive) than the discount store 99 cent pots.  I have dug trenches for some scalloped stone borders to help keep the encroaching lily bed out of it, and to dissuade any critters that might hide beneath the shed behind the bed from using it as a back door.

            I water it every day, and fertilize it every other week.  I pull out anything that somehow blows in and seeds itself in my precious black soil. 

            I have seedlings planted to finish the bed, varieties of herbs that are difficult to find as plants, which I had to carry in and out of the house time and time again due to the fluctuating spring temperatures.  Then they were transplanted into ever-increasing sized cups as they outgrew their tiny seed sponges, before finally reaching their permanent home in the herb garden bed. 

            I have invested so much time, energy, and money into this herb garden that I am not about to let it die.

            Why is it that we will work ourselves silly because of a monetary investment, while at the same time neglecting other things much more important to our lives?

            How about your marriage?  I say to every young couple I know, “Marriage is a high maintenance relationship.”  Right now, they think they will always be this close, always share every joy and every care.  They think there will never come a time when she wonders if he still loves her, or he wonders if she cares at all about the problems he must deal with at work.

            Life gets in the way.  If you want to stay as close as you are during that honeymoon phase, you have to tend your little garden.  Fix his favorite meal.  Send her flowers.  Put a love note in his lunchbox.  Take out the garbage without being asked.  Find a babysitter and go out on a date.  Just sit down after the kids are in bed--make them go to bed, people--and talk to each other.  And listen!  Pray together.  Study together.  Worship together.  Laugh together.  Cry together.

            What about your relationship with God?  Do you think you can maintain a close relationship with someone you don’t know?  He gave you a whole book telling you who He is, 1 Cor 2:11-13.  How much time do you spend with it?  How often do you talk to Him?  How can He help you when you never ask?  How can you enjoy being in the presence of someone with whom you have nothing in common?  Disciples want nothing more than to become like their teachers, 1 Pet 2:21,22; 2 Pet 3:18.

            None of that comes without effort.  You must spend some time and energy, maybe even make a few sacrifices to cultivate your relationship with God.  When you have invested nothing, it means nothing to you, and it shows. 

            Spend some time today improving your marriage, tending to your family relationships, cultivating your love and care for your brethren, and most of all, caring for your soul—pulling out the weeds, feeding it, nursing it along--so it will grow into a deeper, stronger, more fruitful relationship with your God.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to kindness; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek Jehovah, till he come and rain righteousness upon you, Hosea 10:12.

Dene Ward

            Keith had major surgery this past spring and because of his profound deafness I was with him in the hospital as caregiver 24/7.  We don’t do real sign language, but it is easier for me to communicate with him after 40 years of gradually adapting to his increasing disability.  People who are not used to it simply do not know how, and reading lips is not the easy fix to the problem that most think.

            Unfortunately, this hospital stay coincided with the garden harvest.  The beans, squash, and cucumbers had already begun coming in.  While we were away that week, those vegetables continued to grow.  When we got home, the beans were a lost cause--thick, tough, stringy and totally inedible.  The squash looked like a brass band had marched through, discarding their bright yellow tubas beneath the large green leaves, and the cucumbers as if a blimp had flown over in labor and dropped a litter.  If we expected the plants to continue to produce, I had to pull those huge gourds.  That first morning home I picked and dumped 8 buckets full.

            Gardens are taskmasters.  They don’t stop when it doesn’t suit your schedule.  They don’t wait till you have a free moment.  You must reap the harvest when it is ready or you lose it.  Every morning in late May and early June I go out to see what the day holds for me.  Will I be putting up beans or corn or tomatoes?  Will we have okra for supper or do I need to pickle it?  Are the jalapenos ready for this year’s salsa?  Are the bell peppers big enough to stuff or do I need to chop some for the freezer?  Do I need to make pesto before the basil completely takes over the herb bed? 

            And then you look for other problems.  Has blight struck the tomatoes?  Do the vining plants have a fungus?  Have the monarch butterflies laid their progeny on the parsley plants?  Have the cutworms attacked the peppers?  Has the ground developed a bacteria that is killing off half the garden almost overnight?  Do things just need watering?

            Childrearing can be the same way.  Children don’t stop growing until it suits your schedule. They don’t wait till you have a free moment.  You must reap the harvest when it is ready or you lose it.

            God expects you to carefully watch those small plants.  He expects you to check for problems before they kill the plants, and nip them in the bud.  It is perfectly normal for a toddler to be self-centered, but somewhere along the way you must teach him consideration for others.  Are you watching for ways to overcome his innate selfishness and teach him to share? Do you have a plan to teach him generosity?  It won’t happen by itself--you have to do it.

           Are you examining your children every day for those little diseases—stubbornness, a hot temper, whining, disrespect, or the other side of the “leaf”—inordinate shyness, self-deprecation, pessimism.  God expects you to look for problems from the beginning and try to fix them so your child will grow into a happy, well-adjusted adult, able to serve Him without the baggage of character flaws that should have been caught when he was very small.  Parents who ignore these things, thinking they will somehow go away when he grows up, are failing in their duties as gardeners of God’s young souls.  Those things will not disappear on their own any more than nematodes and mole crickets will.

            He also expects you to make clear-eyed judgments.  He may be your precious little cutie-pie, but you need to take off your tinted glasses and take a good look at him.  If you ignore his problems because you are too smitten to see them, you do not love your child as much as you claim.  Whoever spares the rod, hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him, Prov 13:24.  When I ignore the blight in my garden it’s because saving the garden isn’t important to me.

            Have you and your spouse ever just sat and watched your children play?  Have you ever given any thought at all to the things you might need to correct in them?  If your schedule is too busy for that, then you are too busy.  Period.  Your children will keep right on growing, and without your attentive care they may rot on the vine. 

            You are a steward of God’s garden.  The most important thing you can do today is take care of it.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table… Psalms 128:3.

Dene Ward

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Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.
I went to the men's study Friday morning. It was an intro class to the first big section of the study called "Unpacking the Past."  The author called us to honestly look at our past, at the things that shaped who we are, the events that molded our lives and face up to them and learn from them or we can never take control of our lives. We will always be responding to stimuli we don't even acknowledge. He showed what he meant by talking about his childhood and the things that formed him. The negative things he had to overcome came from his father never saying he loved him, or was proud of him, never really talking to him, teaching him, or showing much interest. He was there, but he wasn't REALLY there. These were all things that affected how this teacher lived his life for years until he confronted it and decided to move on. In the discussion period after the class some of the men also talked about how their fathers were distant figures who were never emotionally involved in their children's lives. 

It made me think, and I brought this up in discussion, that I must have been even luckier than I thought in who I got as a father. I've (almost) always known and acknowledged that my dad did a great job as a dad, but the comparison really makes it stand out. Dad got up every morning earlier than he had to so he would have time to read us a chapter out of the Bible while we were eating breakfast. Then he would walk us to the bus stop and we would play catch until the bus came. After he had to give up preaching, he got a very good job as an insurance salesman that paid very well, but most of the contacts and sales meetings were, of course, in the evenings. He quit that job and took one that paid a much less because he felt he was missing us growing up. He wanted to spend time with us.

Perhaps what I most appreciate today -- and appreciated least then -- was that Dad taught us to work. We had what I like to call a "minifarm". Five acres with hogs, chickens, dogs and cats, and a garden so big that not only did we gorge ourselves on fresh produce all summer long and freeze and/or can enough to last us the remainder of the year, but we kept pretty much the whole church (200 people) in free, fresh produce all summer long. We came home from school and had chores to do in the afternoon. We worked hard most of the weekends and throughout the summer. Dad showed us first hand the need for responsibility, hard work, and doing things right the first time. As hard as we worked, Dad always made time for fun. We'd get up early and work hard throughout the morning and early afternoon, then take off and go swimming in one of the local swimming holes, or we'd play baseball or basketball or football -- nice to have a fifty yard long field almost equally wide to play in. Dad regularly told us he loved us and was proud of us. Before bed every night we gathered for a family prayer. He was involved.

That's not to say Dad didn't mess up sometimes. He definitely wasn't perfect, but that brings me to my earliest memory. It occurred, I believe, in South Carolina, from which we moved a week after my third birthday, so it was early in my life. I'm not real sure exactly what happened, just that Dad was angry with me about something and hollered. Mom stopped him and said something, again I'm real fuzzy here, but what I remember clearly is Dad stopping, getting down on the floor so he could look me in the eyes and say he was sorry. He meant it. He said he was sorry, that what he said was something he should never have said and repeated that he was sorry. He then prayed, with me, to God for forgiveness. I've never forgotten. To this day, I am willing to admit when I'm wrong -- I'm stubborn, but if the facts are there, I'll admit it -- and apologize. I've apologized up hill and down hill. I'm willing to listen when others approach me. I try to analyze myself and my actions honestly. Do you think Dad's example might have had something to do with that?

My dad isn't perfect. There were times I was so mad at him I thought I'd never want to see him again -- of course, some of those times were because I wasn't perfect. He messed up, but he loved us. He tried his best, and tried to keep getting better and learn from his mistakes. He studied the Bible for help in getting better. He was there for us, taught us the things he thought were important about being a man, spurred us onward and propped us up. He taught us about God. 

Thanks, Dad.

Lucas Ward