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You Are a Hero! (1)

I remember it like it was last week, but really it was 2001. We were in Mount Prospect, Illinois in a sparsely decorated living room of a house we had rented from the people next door. I was working four part-time jobs, two of which were professional regional theater “shows”, one was a shipping clerk for a small music store, and the fourth I was serving tables as a singing server at a restaurant called Ember’s Charhouse. The combined income, of all four jobs, still barely allowed my family of 4 to eat, and my wife to stay home with our two children (and you thought professional acting was glamorous and rich!). But it was here on a red area rug that barely gave any relief to the baby’s knees from the hardwood floor that I heard my oldest son, who was 4 years of age at the time, say something I will never forget. He was sitting on the windowsill of the old, dilapidated bay window in between the makeshift curtains, that only gave us a small amount of privacy, speaking to his mother. He said, “When I grow up I want to be a ‘show actor’ and work at Embers.”

I was dumbfounded.

How could he want that?!

I thought to myself, “Don’t you know what a difficult life this is? Don’t you want to wait till I make something of myself? Don’t you know that we are barely making ends meet? Don’t you know that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel of society?” …and as I play this memory back in my mind, with the wisdom his growing years have given, Wesley answers me. He says, “No, Dad, I don’t even know what any of that means, but even if I did – I don’t care. You are my Dad, my hero, and I want to be just like you!”

We live our lives in an adult world jaded by concepts such as “what have you done for me lately” and “the proof is in the pudding.” Children do not! Not only have they yet to learned these phrases, but the in-born desire to admire their father trumps these notions even after they have understood what they mean. You see, what I have come to learn is that a son is “hard wired” to admire his father. Do you know what that means? It means you are his hero! Not because you are the CEO of a multi-million-dollar company, not because you are a sports superstar, or a famous stage actor, not because of anything that you have done (beyond the obvious)! It’s a gift given to you by our Heavenly Father and is part of the fabric of life.

So, carry yourself with confidence. You don’t have to achieve certain expectations for your children to look up to you. They want to be like you, the you that they see right now.

“WE ARE MEN OF ACTION…”
So, Dad… I challenge you to lean into your child-given label of hero. Be the hero they already think you to be. Take a step with the hero mentality today! Choose to rescue them, rally support for them, or respond selflessly to their situation

You can do it! Be their hero today: rescue, rally, or respond to them like you are wearing a cape!

*Although posted at the end of 2017, this is the first in what has become a series of posts, you can skip to 2 of 7 with this link.

Good Job Dad!

 

The other night, a less than middle aged man entered the hallway that shared destinations of both the kitchen and the guest bathrooms.  Here, he stopped with his toddler in his arms, and looked directly into the face of his young boy.  “This is not the way we are going to behave,” he said, “You are going to sit in the chair and have a nice meal without yelling and running around.”

The child responded with an attempt to exert his will again.

The man moved his face closer, and repeated himself.  He then added, “I expect you to control yourself.” Once the face of the toddler had fallen from its attempt at manipulation, the man returned to the dining room of John Elway’s Steak House, in the Cherry Creek neighborhood of Denver Colorado (a white table cloth restaurant), where the rest of his party was located.

After watching this interaction, because I was standing in that same hallway, I was compelled to say out loud in the man’s general direction, “Good Job Dad!”

I realized in that moment that there is little encouragement these days for Dad’s being dads. Even people who agree that dads are important, don’t go out of their way to build up a man who takes up the responsibility of what it means to be a good dad.  It can be a difficult job, especially when your pride is on the line.  This Dad’s priority was guiding his young boy, even though it was a little out of his comfort zone, took him away from his guests at the table, and would probably not be the last time he would have to say this to the child.  But he did it.  He did his job.  Good Job Dad!

My name is Ricky Cassford, I am the father of four children myself, and I have a passion for seeing men take up the mantle of Dad!

Our society seems to have some mysterious initiative that would have us forget what the position of a father is truly meant to be. But rather than worry about addressing the origins of that phenomenon, I want to actively pursue doing something about it.

I can’t do it alone.

I want to encourage men to stand up for their families and discover anew what it means to be a dad!  God chose to use the analogy of a father and a son to describe his own character and His relationship within the Trinity.  Over and over  He uses this analogy to help us understand who He is, and how we are to relate to one another.

Solomon once said, “Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers.”  Yet many men out there who have fathered children don’t feel like, much less act like, “the glory of their children,” and yet that is exactly how we are designed.

Will you stand with me?!  I want to see the terms Dad and Father become synonymous again.  That’s the reason I’m writing this.

So, please join me by following this editorial on what it means to be a father, and comment on what you like, don’t like, and can relate to.  We are in this together.  I recognized I don’t have all the answers.  I need this as much as anyone for my own journey to become the father that I am called to be.

Let’s do this!