Fathering

Fathering….YEA!  Remember when your child(ren) first arrived?  Were you there in the delivery room?  I was for all three of mine…two came at the same time.  There we were….their mom was pretty much out….one nurse stood on one side of the room and another on the other side…each holding one of the twins.  Then one asked, “Have you picked out names??” 

 “Sure!” I replied, “Casey and Kyle!”

 “Great!” said the nurse, “Which one is which?”

 There I stood…….speechless.  I must have had that proverbial deer in headlights gaze.  There I thought we had it all worked out….we had the names picked and everything.  Well, except for that one thing….and there I stood….frozen in time.  Then one of the nurses exclaimed “This one looks like a Casey!”  “And this one looks like a Kyle!  What do you think?”  I agreed and so it stands today.

 About a month prior to their first birthday and a couple of months past my eldest son’s third, their mom decided she no longer wanted to be married to me.  My world collapsed.

 I was a Christian, but I hadn’t walked the walk in my later years, although we did attend church from time to time.  Didn’t do much praying….occasional conversations with God…that was about it. 

 Now I was divorced.  I had lost my family.  To say that I was a basket case over all this would put it mildly.  I began to pray.  I mean I began to PRAY earnestly ….for my sons.  On one particular night I found myself on the floor of a darkened hallway in my home, weeping profusely and literally crying out to God.

 “Let them know you, Father!  Let my sons know Your Son!  Please my Lord God in heaven take my sons to be Your own!” I called out.  (These were the words.  I remember them well and have spoken them to Him again and again ever since.)

 He heard the prayers of even this desperate man….this fallen man…..this sinful man…..and granted my plea.  Over a dozen years later, I can look to my sons and be comforted that I will see them in heaven.  But a lot happened over those years to bring us to this point.

 There was a catch, you see.  The father…me…well….I had to change….and I did.  Not overnight, mind you.

 Malachi 4:7 states that a father will turn his heart back to his children and they to their father, or else then God the Father would curse the land….therefore if the father does change his heart would not the opposite be true…that God would bless the land? 

 Might I submit to you that for this to happen the father must first turn his heart to the Father….and His Son.  We shall pursue this thought and process in future articles, plus more.