time carried away, now lost

the other day i was driving to the church and i was thinking about my kids. ginafish and i have 2 children, “E” (boy) who will be seven in september and “S” (girl) who will be 5 in december.

i know that over the years i have improved as a father, but i am far from perfect. i was thinking about time lost.

when E was about 4 i was very, very involved with another church (not the one we are at now), i was serving as an elder, youth committee chair and “youth pastor”… (i put that in quotes because this congregation did not have a youth pastor and i thought i could be one and work a 40 hour a week job on top of all of that.)

well, i thought right… i was able to work 40 hours and attend youth meetings every two weeks, teach on sunday nights, and attend/chaperone every single youth event that we had. the only reason that i was able to do all of these things was not because God supernaturally filled me with the Grace to get it all done. it was because i ignored my family. E was at that age where daddy is the greatest person in the world, daddy is the coolest and no matter what me and daddy do together we always have a good time. the problem was: i missed it. i didn’t know that was happening because I was so damn “busy” doing church work… not the Lord’s work, the church’s work… there is a difference.

and now i try hard (i could try harder i admit) to make it up to E, but i can’t. no matter what. i can’t do enough to make up for that. i love my children so much, and i have learned an important lesson from that and will not make the exact same mistake again. i know that God has forgiven me for not being there… he knows i have asked many times… i know that E has forgiven me, i know my wife has forgiven me, but now it is me who won’t forgive, myself that is.

maybe some day E and S will read this blog to see how my life was and to learn more about me and if they do i want to say:

i love you E and i love you S. forgive me for not being the dad i could have been… maybe if you have kids of your own you will understand and not make the same mistake i did.