Who is your role model?

We often hear kids saying things like, “well my daddy is the best at this!” or “my mom makes the best cookies ever! Or “when I grow up I want to be a pig farmer when I grow up because that is what my dad is!” As a preschool teacher at church I got my fair share of knowing what mom and dads were the best! One kid didn’t like the color green because her dad doesn’t like the color green. However, it is amazing how we see this changing as the kids grow older. Not only do they no longer brag about their parents but sometimes we come as close as to actually putting down our parents. It is no longer cool to agree with your parents. It is no longer cool to ever do anything with your parents. But eventually (hopefully) we grow out of this stage too. We then get to a stage where we begin to realize that yes our parents aren’t perfect and no they haven’t possibly made always the best choices but man! They have given a lot up for us!

                I feel like I owe my parents a lot. I am quite sure that there really is very little way that we can pay back to our parents for what they have done for us. My parents have put more time, money, love and care for me then I can ever pay back. This thought depresses me a little because I would like to give back to them what they have all done for me. I have begun to think a little bit about what they have taught me.  Tonight I am going to focus on my dad. I admire my dad for many things. I have thought of a few and used his name to show it.

Steve:   S- studious – I rarely remember a time when he hasn’t been teaching Sunday school. Plus he has taught at Bible school, led bible studies at our church and other churches and also has talks for multiple community functions. He reads many books making him very knowledgeable on many topics.

             T – trust – one thing I have really appreciated about dad is the fact that he has trusted us kids a lot. He knows we mess up and sometimes he has ideas of what he thinks we should or shouldn’t do but he lets us make the decision for ourselves. Sometimes we wish he would just tell us what to do or sometimes we wish he would have made us do what he suggested but he sees the value in us figuring things out for ourselves and building our own convictions and learning from our mistakes.

                E – endurance – there are very few people I know that are willing to work from 2 am to 6 pm every Thursday as well as work at least 10 hour days every other day of the week with the exception of Sunday. He has also sat on many, many boards throughout his life meaning that there are also lots of meetings in the evenings. Dad has always been a very hard worker and that is something that us kids learned quite young.

                V – (ok so v is a hard letter so I am going to pick a word that has a v in it)  talkative- my dad likes to talk. J But watching him do this I have learned that he is very open about what he believes and not scared to mention that to anyone he comes in conversation with. I watch him interact with customers daily and people like him a lot. People respect him a lot. People want to talk to him. He is very good at interacting with strangers making it so that he knows many people and even more know him. If I someday have half the courage he does in this area I will be happy!

               E – (since I already used my e word I will do the letter in the word again) heart- dad has a very big heart! He is extremely generous with his time and money. I have much to learn from him in this area as well.

I am very thankful for my parents and I thank God so much for blessing me in this area! I know not everyone has got as lucky as me and I take that for granted way too much. I still have much to learn in life and I would like to learn more from my parents because they have oh so much to teach me.