Father's Day 2021

​Dear boys.

To say this Father's Day looks different from last Father's Day would be quite an understatement now wouldn't it?

I poke my head out the door of my bedroom. There you both are. Just on the other side of that door. One asleep on a couch that folds into a bed, the other on an inflatable mattress.

All I know - is when I look, more than I ever have, I find a joy in saying, there you are.

For me, it's been a year of surprising judgment and equally surprising acceptance - but one thing has not been surprising. What hasn't surprised me is the unconditional love I've received from both of you.

There was a moment Saturday. You were both sitting in the back car of one of our favorite roller coasters. You were laughing and joking - together - talking about the roller coaster whipping your car off the track and back on.

It's like a wild ride in a cartoon, you both said, each trying to upstage each other with the ridiculousness you painted into that story.

And in that moment, in your pee-your-pants laughter, life felt as real and un-cartoonish to me as it's felt in a very long time.

I'm afraid for too long Father's Day has been too much about celebrating being a father. It was one more day of trying to force myself into the mold of what I'd come to believe father should look like, one more day of trying with all my might to avoid having father look like things I didn't want it to look like.

But today, this Father's Day, today I celebrate having two boys. You two. You define what father is.

Nothing else. No one else.

I celebrate that not once over the past 8 months have you rose from that couch or that inflatable mattress and complained. With humbleness, you've simply got up and loved.

Every time, a perfect timing love.

There have been days this past year when I haven't known what was up and what was down.

What was right and what was wrong.

What is good and what is bad.

But one thing I haven't had to wonder about is what I'd find on the other side of that door.

Today, I'm reminded that God doesn't spend a lot of time wrestling with what being a father looks like, he spends a lot of time instead celebrating his children.

Today, I'm reminded God doesn't spend a lot of time talking about what it looks like to be God, but rather he spends a lot of time talking about what it looks like being loved by God's children.

This Father's Day is different for sure. But I know more than ever what it looks and feels like to be loved by my children. And that - that makes all the things I don't know quite meaningless.

It's been a tough year, but I celebrate you two. I'm proud of you both. I am grateful that on the other side of that door... there you are.

And I assure you, always, here I am.