Dads, Slow Down

I am sitting here in a coffee house of all places writing a post. If you know me, I am not a coffee house kinda person. Coffee, yes. Coffee house, not really. But for my daughter who is downstairs at a homeschool Christmas party, I’ll sip on some rather good coffee and take in the atmosphere for a bit. In doing this I am looking back through time. Over the years, things have moved fast. However, this past year seems like a blur.  Covid, phenomena, walking any distance, covid again, and attempting to get myself back to what I was has been a challenge. Then last month, my son has gone and gotten engaged! Not believing in long engagements, they will be married on December 30th. Yes, this year. Not only that, they picked me to do the wedding.  Lord, hold back the tears please!  Time…where did it go?

Listen

Dad, if there is one thing that I could stress to you as you look at your kids and the life you are living, it is to slow down. I know it sounds cliché to say such a thing, but men it is true! It seems like it was only last month that I was in the floor with my kids playing with these squishy big cars on the floor at Christmas, or digging up the treasure chest we found under the “Granddaddy Oak” tree in the woods, or dragging them on a sheet of plywood through the snow. Now, they are both working jobs and one is about to get married. The days of my “boys” are gone and now I am living in the days of my “men”.

Proud, yes I am proud of both of them and what they have done and will be doing. Proud of my little, but not so little girl who is slipping into a young woman. Who plays music that I just don’t get. Has found boys she wants to date, but they are all to scared of me to even stand close to her. I remember taking her to the Nutcracker play and getting all dressed up and now it’s not something that seems fun.

I am starting to understand and know the feelings that my dad had when I moved out to college and then later got married. I stood in his bedroom this past week and just looked around at how clean it was, how I could see the floor, and how empty it was also.

Yet through all of this there are two things that have not changed. One is my wife who sticks close to me and ensures that I am taken care of even when I don’t do it myself. She is the one that I started with and will be with me when the house is “empty”. She is the one who makes me smile, makes my heart skip a beat, the one who still sees the good in me when I don’t, and she is the one that I want to sit in a rocking chair and watch the sun set. The second is God. Not making Him second, because with out Him being first, my wife and I would not be where we are today. God’s hand has been so evident in my life over the past year. The way that He carried me through Covid in the hospital, how He moved me afterwards when I got home, how He has moved in my life in my ministry as a Children’s Pastor, and how He has worked in my family. I owe all that I am to God.

Trust me

So, men slow down. Take take for God who loves you. Take time for your wife who loves you. Take time for the kids who love you. There is the quote I have wrote about before that “Time is the fire in which we all burn”. Once something has burned, it can not be recovered to what it once was. Therefore, enjoy it now. Put down the phone, turn off the television, get off this blog, and enjoy a slower pace with your family and God!

Till next time,
I’m just a husband of a homeschooling mom.

Steve Blackston

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