Day 34 of our adoption journey

When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments the first four are about how man is to honor, love and serve God and the last six deal with how men are to respect and love one another.  One of these six have been looked over many times and it is the only commandment with a promise. “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Exodus 20:12 KJV).  Now what this means is we should honor our parents, grandparents and even our great grandparents.  How? By not bringing shame on them, we need to remember the teachings of these people that have help mold our lives.  We need to remember the HARD work many of them did to ensure the survival of their families and the values and morals they lived by and taught.  So today I pray that you will remember not only your fathers and mothers but also your parentage and live up to the standards by which they lived and taught.

Today I cannot tell my father happy father’s day, but he is in my thoughts every day.  As I sat today with “H” and I looked at him I thought to myself, he will never know what a good man my father was unless I tell him.  Just as I plan on telling and teaching him about my Heavenly Father because I really want “H” to know who God is and what a great sacrifice God and His Son Jesus Christ made for us because of the love they have for us.  What a great and awesome love that is, and as a father this is one of my responsibilities, to ensure my family knows who God is and they are always serving Him in the Church, at home and in the world.  But we must be like Jesus and lead and teach by example.  Remember the little ones are watching you and they observe more than you want to admit.  If you don’t believe me just think back to your childhood and remember the things you observed in your parents and how much of that is still reflected in you.

I can remember as child and a hard headed teenager, I will never by like my dad, but you know what I am.  And as time goes on, I am becoming more and more like him and there are even times I will say something and it catches me so off guard because the words I am saying and hearing are the exact words of my dad.  I am a product of his upbringing and teaching and I remember from a very early age when there was a work day at church my dad would take us boys with him and he taught us to work in and for the church.  He and momma sacrificed a lot to make sure most of us had piano lessons so we could serve in the church.  And today because of that three churches in our community are benefiting from those sacrifices.  Just as today my son was using his God given talent in his church to help others worship God and that makes me one proud dad.  I know my Son-in-Law had my daughter and their children in church today and that gives me great consolation.  My other Son I call him, he is actually my nephew is usually in church on Sunday and also his sister, (another one we call daughter) and her husband are in church near their home.  It gives Kathy and me great satisfaction knowing this and our prayer for all six of our sons (four sons and two son-in-laws) is they will always be the Spiritual leader of their families that God has commanded them to be.  And finally that they will teach their children to honor them and their parentage and live in the morals and truths of Gods word as their fathers before them have.

Our time each day with “H” is so wonderful and I look at this young man and I say to Kathy, “You had better get in shape if you are going to keep up with this one.”  I am not kidding about that, this young man only knows one speed and that is wide open.  He has so much energy and is so full of life and humor.  Today as he was playing a game on his pad, when he would win he would yell in delight!  It is so wonderful to see him happy because that is what we want, we want him to be happy!  We let him play most of the time today, why you ask?  Well it is because he got every one of his letters correct today and we did not even have to help him.  Also he was able to do all of his numbers and we have been working with him at camp to understand currency.  Many of the workers at the camp are teachers in this small town and they see what we are doing and they are helping us.  We want him to be able to buy a snack all by himself with the money we allot him each day.  I think he began to understand today and the teacher at the counter really helped because she made him ask for what he wanted and pay for it and tell her how much she needed to give him back.  Again another person God has put in our path to guide us and help us learn how to help “H”.  GOD IS GOOD, ALL THE TIME!  And today I spent Father day with our new son, but we were with all of our children in spirit and they were and will always be in our hearts.  We love you ALL!!!!