Family

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I recently listened in on a conversation between two pre-teen boys. It went something like this:

“Don’t you want to know your real dad?”

“I already know my real dad.”

“Your (younger) sister says you’ve never met him.”

“My sister doesn’t understand. She’s talking about my (biological) father. My real dad’s married to my mom. That’s all that maters to me.”

I found this to be extremely heart-warming. What a great perspective from the boy. What an amazing gift of love he’s received from his “real dad.”

This is not a knock on biological fathers who are absent. That can happen for a wide variety of reasons. Instead, this blog is in praise of those dads, both step dads and adoptive dads, who have fully embraced their kids. There is no greater gift that they could ever give to a child of any age than this type of love.

Of course, there is a great role model for the “real dad.” His name was Joseph. He lived in a time when being an unwed mother brought the very worst kind of shame. Being seen as the biological father of a child out-of-wedlock was nearly as bad in this particular culture.

Joseph shouldered the burdens of this public scorn to be a “real dad.” His adopted son, the human Jesus, turned out to be pretty good!

Thanks in part to Joseph.

Shalom, Art
Alive in The Word

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