The Papa

I wrote this gushy post for my momma on Mother's Day and I'm pretty sure she cried. My goal wasn't to produce tears, but...you know. It's my mom. That's what she does, and I love it. I get my tenderness and happy tears from her. 

Father's Day came, I prepared a talk in church about fathers (and even mentioned my own father in front of like 200 strangers), and no words for a gushy post came to the surface. 

It's not because I don't love and honor my dad. It's because my dad is not an outwardly gushy person. He has feelings and deep thoughts and lots of love, but he doesn't have gush built into him. I get my deep introspection and writing from him. And I cherish it just as much as I cherish my tenderness. 

So I won't write a huge list about my dad, but I will share the best thing about him. 

There's a story about a boy who fell into a hole in the ground. The only way he could be retrieved was to send a smaller child into the tunnel to get him. When the boy was approached to see if he would go down into the hole to rescue the other boy, he said, "I am scared to go into that hole, but I will go if my father will hold my rope." 

How often are we that child, who set off on adventures and just need to know that our fathers are holding our ropes on solid ground? Even at 24, my rope stretches far across the California desert and into Utah Valley; the rope may be long, but it's still there, and my father is still holding it. And when it tugs, I know he'll be there to reinforce his grip. He will never let me fall down the hole. 

And that is the best thing about my father.