Roses on Plantation Road, Oxford

Today, I spent my second (out of my first 2) Father’s Day 3,000+ miles away from my family. Once again in Oxford for business, I contemplated this celebration of fathers around the world, an exercise made more unique because I was so far removed from those very people who make me a “father.” And that is the most important distinction of what Father’s Day means to me.

For, how can one be a father without first being a husband? How can one be a father without a wife and then a child? Without either, I am just a man. It is my wife who makes me a husband (without her love, support, companionship and love of God, my husbandry is even lower). And it is my daughter who makes me a father, and whose very existence reminds me of God’s grace, mercy and love and for whom I would want to know Scripture so that I can teach her well.

In Simone, God has blessed me with an incredibly God-seeking wife (the first and most-important qualification any Christian man should look for in a spouse…it is equally important the other way around) and whose desire is to submit and please our Creator. In Isabelle—whose name means “consecrated to God,” “abundance of God,” among others and whose middle name means “grace”—has truly been a blessing to us since her birth. She is charming and generous to all (offering her playthings almost always and sharing what we feed her by giving some back to us). May we be able to continue teaching and raising her not to please ourselves or her, but to please God.

On this—and all father’s days to come, I suspect—it is not material gifts which my head turns to, like mentally checking off a wish list.

It is I who is honored and blessed to be a father. God is good!

A happy father’s day, indeed!