Lord, thanks for fatherhood.
You know what it is like to be a Father.
You bring all Your children to life and to us.
In prayer You guide fathers like me with Your light.
You embrace our children in Your arms.
Yet, You let them to be free to live and learn
In a world as tender, perilous, and beautiful
As the flight of a dove.

As a thirty-something year old father,
I cradled my infant son John in my arms.
I held my baby Catherine in my lap.
Ever since those moments of being a father
I have never questioned the purpose of my being.
As a father, I have had incredible joys.
Walls of worry.
Deep pride.
Struggles with hanging on and letting go.
Allowing Your will to overcome mine in raising them.
Gratefulness in knowing
That if I have failed in any aspect of fatherhood
You were there for them and for me.

Due to polio I could not lift my kids in the air,
Carry them on my shoulders.
Climb trees with them.
Hike in the woods with them.
Play sports with them.
But, thanks to You and Your example
I was able to do the best thing a father could do for John and Catherine.

Love.

Amen

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Jack H. Emmott is a Senior Counsel of Gray, Reed & McGraw, LLP, a 145-lawyer full service firm in Houston, Dallas and Waco, Texas, a Board-Certified Family Law and Master Credentialed Collaborative Law Professional Divorce Attorney, Mediator, Author, Entrepreneur and Inspirational Speaker. For more information about Jack or his latest book, Bending Angels: Living Messengers of God’s Love, go to the Bending Angel website.