What I’ve learned from the best daddy ever.

Well, really, it has nothing at all to do with Father’s Day, except that he inspired these lessons and, in effect, me so let’s just chalk it up to a great Father’s Day post, shall we?

How Christian burst the happy bubble I lived in.

If you know my man at all, you know this. If he meets you, you are now his friend. Our family says that everywhere he goes, he has to make a friend. Like, he can’t leave a conversation until a friend is made. This means that we might wait forty-five minutes in the car while he makes a friend with the cashier. Or the hostess. Or the guy in NYC selling homemade dvd’s of his amazing “music”.

We complain. Yes, we do. I’ve said it before, and I repeat it daily. I spend my life waiting for Christian.

But, his friendliness has changed folks’ lives. He has impacted people around the world. He has made a difference. He thinks the best of folks whether they deserve it or not.

And, in turn, inspired his family to try to do the same.

Granted, we try to sum it all up and do in two minutes what he might need a half an hour for, but he really burst our little–stay-in-our-own-worlds–bubbles and taught each of us to reach out and make an effort in other people’s lives. And, I’m proud to see it in my children, and even in myself every now and again.

I’ve learned that there is a song for every occasion. I mean every sentence. If he hears someone say, “It’s a beautiful day!” he will (like clockwork) always sing a song by Bono. In fact, he is so known for it, that song is his ringtone.

My man can change any words he hears spoken into a song he recalls from various decades. It’s fascinating what he’s stored up in his brain. Sometimes I tease him for it. It’s true. But, life is a bit easier with a song, is it not? And I can’t tell you how many moods he’s lightened.

The beat goes on. Life has its rhythms, and those rhythms take up residency in Christian’s head. And they turn everything into complicated beats–on steering wheels and the back of my arm–or head.

His mind works in ways I couldn’t repeat if my life depended on it. No matter how bad the day may be, the beat goes on. And a happy little rhythm ticks away and marks the time.

Strength wears different faces. Some days it is brute strength that can carry a tired, pregnant wife up a steep hill while pushing a stroller.

Other times, strength is holding up a weeping, broken wife who cannot stand on her own. Or standing in the way of a verbal rock being thrown. Or just taking “that phone call.”

And it may just look like a man in tears as he prays for his children to know the love of his God the way he does.

Whatever shape it’s wearing on any given day, when I think of strength, I picture a guy who embodies it every day in a million ways. And I am grateful.

Happy Daddy’s Day to all those guys who hold our worlds up and make them keep spinning the right way; who make us smile and hold our hands and those of the little punkins they stand as a models for.

Because of mine, I know what love looks like…