i have a very loving family. i know many of you might not. i don’t know why God put me in such a great family, but He did. i also know that this life i lead has come through a lot of good decisions made by all my parents (my dad, my mom, my stepmom). they chose to live what they believed, and what they believed is straight from the Bible.

so a lot of what I’ve learned about God, i’ve learned from my dad. growing up, we didn’t have family devotions and we didn’t have consistent times of family prayer. but the way my dad lives his life—he breathes life into the verses i hear at church.

my dad is an incredible man, but i didn’t always think so. he was distant when I was a growing up, thus I couldn’t relate to him. everything i loved to do seemed the complete opposite of how he was wired; the connecting points we shared were few and far between.

then when I was 13, my mom died. i was left with this guy who was my dad, a guy I loved but didn’t really know. a guy I respected but never felt close to. he was the provider and the disciplinarian, but he wasn’t my ‘dad’. It wasn’t until that year after my mom’s death, when my brother, my dad and i all clung to one another for survival that we learned to work and live together.

while I went through the emotional roller coaster of being a teen and also trying to be an instant grownup, my dad’s faith and trust in God remained constant. unfortunately, I didn’t respect that then; and continually had my doubts about him, keeping a long mental list of all the ways he fell short of my expectations.

as i grew older, i began to see my dad not for who I expected him to be, but for who he really is. he no longer was an emotionally distant person who never seemed to get it right in my eyes. he was a man who sometimes made tough choices to take care of his kids; to be the kind of dad he needed to be. he was someone who consistently showed me that he loved me, just not in the ways i had expected.

he was the man who loved me. he loved me because I’m his. he loved me when I messed up and he loved me when I hurt. and he was, and is, proud of me.

my dad’s not perfect (no dad is, just ask my kids), and God used those areas where my dad’s parenting fell short to show me how real He was in my life.

and because of that, i gained a clearer picture of who God really is, and not who i expected Him to be.

i also gained a clearer picture of my dad.

i love my dad. he is one of the greatest men i know. and i am honored to be his son. i count it a privilege to have grown up in the house of walker, and hope that i can do the same for my sons.

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