A Father to a little boy

I saw a picture of myself today. I wasn't thumbing through an old photo album or anything. I didn't physically see it. I saw it in my mind. I saw it in the way my son acts. I saw it in my own feelings.

The picture I see is not of a grown man full of confidence and courage. The picture is of an insecure little curly headed boy. A boy who desperately wanted affirmation.

That same boy...the one I see in my mind...he haunts me daily. Like I said, I see him in my sons actions from time to time. And then I want to run and affirm him so that he doesn't harbor any long-term feelings about himself.

But I also see that little boy at times when I am alone with my thoughts. And he scares me. That little boy, I think, needs something from me that I am not quite sure I know how to give it to him.

I want to be the best dad I can be and I want to be the best man I can be. Sometimes I am not sure I can do both at the same time.

I still have stuff that I wish I'd have dealt with when I was younger instead of carrying it along with me into adulthood. So now there are times when that picture of that little curly headed, insecure boy weighs so heavy on my heart in such a way that I feel like I am reliving those times in my childhood when I just wanted to crawl away and hide.

But grown men can't do that (I wouldn't look good crawling anyway). I keep affirming myself recently with the things I learned a few years back from Christ-Life Solutions...that who I am as a person isn't what others say about me...it isn't what I say about me, for that matter, either...but who I am is who God says I am. Period.

I am His child. I am His curly headed, insecure child.

I am the Dad to my boys now. But sometimes...in harder, quieter moments...I live with a deep regret that I never had a Dad. I was robbed of that.

So my heavenly Father has to pour out a little extra Fatherliness my way from time to time. Now is one of those times I need Him.