Dad, I love you

Dad,

I just want to take this chance to say thank you.

Thank you for all of your encouraging words, but even more... thank you for your encouraging actions.
Thank you for always reminding me that I am free. I don't have to be tied to a system of thinking or believing to find my identity. My identity rests in Christ alone. Thank you for reminding me that I am beautiful and that I have an incredible, unique gift that nobody else can offer to others, and no matter what... no matter how many times my heart is hurt or situations and relationships seem hopeless... we have Love to share with others.
Thank you for waking up at 2am many nights when I would call crying about a difficult situation.
Thank you for knowing what to do:: pray with me.

Thank you for teaching me to cherish simple moments... moments like playing Mr. Bowl with you when I was 4... remember that Dad? We would put bowls on our heads and make-believe we lived in another country and could speak another language or just talk about anything we wanted to.
Thank you for taking time out of your work-week to stay home and teach Greek Mythology during the dreadful years of homeschooling (p.s. I liked your class the best).

Thank you for gathering our family together to have "family meetings" where we talked about our feelings and the things that concerned us. You showed me how to express my thoughts and concerns with others close to me.... our family. You taught me that it is okay to discuss and say what I am thinking or feeling in that very moment. You taught me that it is okay to ask the hard questions in life and you taught me that it is okay to be real and admit that I may not have it all together... because in reality, most people really don't. You taught me how to work hard, even if it means taking time out of doing what I want to do.... just so I can complete the task well and keep my word.

Thank you for showing me what it means to "seek and find".... after all the years moving from church to church... you never chose to be satisfied with the politics of it all. Dad, you are a visionary. Thank you for showing me what it looks like to be fearless. To say the things nobody else is saying, even when it cost you your job as a "pastor". You were spiritually hungry enough to literally travel the country to search for what you knew in your heart as truth, saying "there must be more".... more to the Church. You were so hungry to see the Eternal Purpose that God placed in your spirit in reality. You probably don't know this, but when you took your sabbatical when I was 8 years old and we were living in that house in Illinois, I would sit at the top of the stairs to the basement and listen to you pray during your devotional time. I would cry with you in the early morning hours when your cries for the Church to be who She is truly meant to be reached me there on that top stair. I wanted to see your burdens lifted and hear the joy in your voice again. I wanted to see the light in your eyes every day.

Dad, thank you. I love you more than words can ever express and I just wanted you to know how incredibly much you mean to me.

This quote reminds me of you...
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer or deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiams, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither knew victory or defeat."
~Theodore Roosevelt, excerpted from the speech “Citizenship in a Republic” delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910.