There is no pain like the pain of being mistreated by those who, above all others, you expect to love you unconditionally.

God the Father Almighty is good. And He must be good in ways that surpass my earthly father.

I’m still piecing together fragments. I’ve spent my life collecting scraps of personal stories that will explain my father to me.

It’s one of my favorite family pictures. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on a couch are my granddad, my dad, me, and my son. A four-generation snapshot: Lee Roy to Carson to Chad to Luke.

He loved me, to be sure, but in a very nondescript, emotionally detached way, which is the way my grandfather loved him.

A twelve-year-old girl stomped out of the room and slammed her bedroom door. Her two parents sat at the table completely befuddled. They had been trying to lead her to grace, to forgiveness, to a remembering that she was loved.

In divorce God married me to the cross. I didn’t want it; indeed, I hated it. But upon my shoulders God laid it. The ring of nails. The veil of darkness. The kiss of death. When we are stripped of all the good we think we are and have, we come face to face with the evil within. We fight and wrestle and gasp and die and become nothing.

The Son that He is sending into this world will need more than a mother; He needs a father.

My daughter’s honest, pointed question of “Why?” not only desired an answer; it deserved and demanded the “dreadful beauty” of an honest response.

A little magic goes a long way. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of magic. Magic, hidden in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

It was by listening closely to Dr. Rosenbladt's words and watching his quiet actions that one could learn many things about being a dad.