Father’s Day always feels like a knot I carry in my chest.
Not unbearable, just there—
tight with memory and mystery.
Because I didn’t grow up with a dad around.
Not really.
He was gone when I was still small enough to believe
that everyone had someone to build their pinewood derby car with.

So when I became a father,
I walked into it with empty hands.
No blueprint, no model—
just love, a little fear, and a prayer
that grace could build what history left undone.

With my three kids,
it’s been everything—
laughter echoing down hallways,
arguments over nothing and everything,
trips to the ER,
inside jokes that still make us laugh,
text messages that leave a lump in my throat.

I’ve watched them come alive—
in their passions, their questions, their becoming.
And I’ve watched them come undone.
Sometimes both in the same week.

There’s a kind of dying that comes with parenting—
the slow surrender of control,
of certainty,
of being able to fix what hurts.
You watch them become their own people,
and you ache—
not because you want them to stay small,
but because you love them so fiercely,
you feel it in your bones.

But there’s joy, too—
the quiet kind that sneaks up on you.
When you catch a glimpse of their courage.
Or watch them comfort a friend.
Or hear them speak truth with a voice
that’s somehow both familiar and entirely their own.

I’ve made mistakes.
Things I’d do differently if I had the chance.
But I also know this:
love covered more ground than I thought it would.
God filled in more cracks than I ever could.

These days I pray more.
Not just the “protect them” prayers,
but the “form them” ones—
shape them, Lord,
even if it’s hard.

And somewhere in the quiet,
I hear the echo of the Father I never had
but always needed—
the one who never left,
never flinched,
never withheld.

So today,
I hold the ache and the hallelujah.
I carry both.
Because being a dad
has wounded me in the holiest of ways.
And it’s also lit up corners of my heart
I didn’t know existed.

What a gift.
What a wonder.
What a grace.