The story left off with my dad being a single parent with two boys. He raised us for 3 years by himself (with a lot of help from my grandma.) This is where his example shows me where I feel I am falling short as a parent. Through all the stuff he was struggling with back then, working overtime, going through a divorce, having to temporarily move back in with his parents, etc… He still made time for me and Jonathan. He got down on our level and interacted with us, spent time with us and just played with us. Sure we ate a lot of instant egg-fu-young (that stuff is actually pretty good), ate out at the Kroger cafe and got our clothes straight out of the dryer but… we still had fun. We took trips, we went to church, we had Big Time Wrestling matches in my grandma’s living room. Even though the divorce was scarring me in ways I still don’t quite understand, we knew our dad loved us and was trying to make things better.

When I was 8 years old, in 1980, my dad got remarried. The 19 year old daughter of Bob, one of the friends that helped lead him to Christ. Her name is Jane and, fortunately, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. I’m not going to lie and say that things were easy and hunky-dory, because they were not. I don’t care who you are, blended families are not easy but it worked. My brother and I saw what a Christ-centered marriage was supposed to look like. I still think they are crazy for trying it but I’m glad they did.