A Fatherless Home

I have been thinking allot today about what effect not having a Daddy in their teenage years will have on my girls. I know as a mom I lost my partner where I lacked in parenting he made up for, we were kinda like the tag team wrestlers of parents. Now I am doing it all alone and not always as well as I hoped. I hear all the time that kids without a Dad in the picture are more likely to join a gang or commit suicide. I pray that the decade plus they DID have a Daddy will help ease them through but I worry so much about them. Today in the car my girls asked me do I want to still approve all their dates or do I trust them. At first I thought they were giving me a hard time because they always knew Daddy expected to meet a guy and approve him before they dated, but they were honestly asking. I told them that totally I expect the same thing that Daddy expected that a boy will come to me and ask permission of me. That is just one example of about a million different situations that they learned from the day they were born Daddy was going to handle and now :(. I am acutely aware that our entire life is going to forever change but I think daily we run into scenarios that they question what is it going to be now?? From the day they were born Daddy dreamed about crying his eyes out as he walked them down the isle and that became a treasured mental picture for the girls. I can remember being at my moms house when the girls were around 9-12 and they tried on my wedding veil. When they came out for Daddy's approval he would stand up with a tear in his eye and lift the veil and kiss them and pertended to give them to an awaiting groom. Now they aren't sure how that picture is going to look when it really happens. I think after 5 months we are all so grateful for the time that we had with that wonderful man and would never change a moment (okay maybe the moment cancer went from a word to a death sentence). We are now to the point of grieving the moments we will never have. Daddy teaching them to drive, putting the fear of God into any of their dates, sitting across the table from the young man that wants to be their groom and making sure that young man loves them like Christ loved the church, crying his eyes out trying to keep it together as he walked them down an isle to give them away, that daddy daughter dance. How are all those moments going to look like?? I heard the analogy that loosing someone is like when someone has something amputated they do heal but they are never the same. Clearly we will NEVER be the same and it is scary all for of us had this mental picture of how life's events will unfold now we have no idea. I do know that I have the next 9 years of 3 girls going into different stages of teenageness and they will be doing it without a Dad. I ask that you remember my girls and that when they need it God will provide a godly man to be that influence on them that they need so much. Gary before he died would spend a lot of time interceding for the godly men that will need to step up for the girls and for the man that would one day serve as their step dad (ask me and I will tell you what special quality he asked God to give him for me) , I told him he better be praying allot about the godly men in their life because there is no other man in this world that would equal to him and after the best I could never settle for less. I miss him so much I miss the love and encouragement from him. I miss when the girls saw me crying over something and called me a baby he would chime in and say don't make fun that is my favorite part of mommy her tender heart. Gary I love and adore you thank you for leaving us with 2 decades of amazing wonderful memories and thank you for all the seeds that you put into the girls and I. Now I have a new mental picture of meeting Gary as I come one day (a long time from now) into heaven and hearing him say I am so proud of you sweetheart and come let me introduce you to Jesus ..

I spent the morning cleaning out (I am not done yet) a desk drawer that has been the "catch all" for our family since way before we were a family. The drawer of this desk is where Gary hid my engagment ring until that awesome day he preposed. This ugly little desk was in Gary's room at home, in his first bachelor pad that quickly turned into our first apartment and followed us as we went to bigger apartments annually as we added more kids almost annually and has set in the bedroom we shared in our first house for the past 11 years.Gary wanted to trash the desk a long time ago and get a new nicer looking desk so I dont feel to bad about kicking it to the curb but it holds a ton of memories for me. In church you hear the phrase of you wanna know where a persons priorities are look in their checkbook well I say look into a persons 20 year old junk drawer and you will get a good idea. The above picture is of the contents of the drawer in the picture you will notice a lot of family pictures family has always been so important to the both of us. Gary would always say we HAVE to make sure family stays together we cant get through this life alone. That was when he was healthy, family became WAY more important after he got sick. You will also see a gift from his work, wow I could have never imagined the wonderful role his work played during Gary's illness. I cant say enough about how they rallied behind him and this family. Gary spent so much of his life worried that one mess up and he would be fired when all along his work was behind him a 110% when he finally realized that he was just overwhelmed with grattitiude that God had made a way for him to come back to that company after leaving for a time. Also in the picture is a cassette tape (yes cassette) from the March for Jesus. Gary was VERY involved with this he loved being apart of something that brought praise into the streets of Jacksonville. At the bottom of the picture you will find a bag of rocks that we mined at our honeymoon these unrefined rocks hold small saphires and some other stones I dont remember, this bag reminds me not only the sometimes wonderful but mostly comical time we had on our honymoon. It is a good symbolism for the both of us we never saw ourselves as anything but an ugly gnarly rock and through lifes painful refining process we both began to see a glimmer of something special under the surface. Gary has gotten to shed that outter layer of mess and come into the fullness of all that God made him to be. God is still working on me.. On top of the pile you will find a cross necklace, we tried for the 16 years and three months that we were husband and wife to always put Christ at the top of everything that we did pleasing God and serving Him ..I hope the next 16 years finds our junk drawer looking similar. The girls and I are still trying to figure out how this life will work without Daddy but I know it will have a ton of family and friends and Jesus will remain at the center other than that who knows I know I have a God and Gary cheering us on..