I was looking at our daughter play the other day, and I was having another one of those reflective moments.

I was thinking back to the last two years, I was seeing all of her growth, but failing to see my own.

In this moment, as I contemplated the blessings and sacrifices that come with child-rearing I began to ask the question “Who Layla has been raising who”? And my answer… I think my daughter has been raising a dad.

Although we parents have been responsible for providing nutrition, a home, a pair of arms in which to lay a head, and a diaper change from time to time (smile). I can’t help but think about how my daughter has helped me to grow as a father. It has at times (as I am sure many of you reading this know) come with many growing pains. Patience has been hard to come by at times, and if there is anything that a child can teach us it is patience.

If it is not through our child then it is by watching Wendy take such care to calmly discipline and love our child in both the best of times and the worst of times. Fear, the greatest of worldly evils, permeated so much of my existence, fear of loss probably, of comfort, of the things which bring richness to my life, oh how I have failed so many a time to see the richness in the simple moments…and I am deeply ashamed of this. And Joy, just looking back at pictures, to see the hope and smile of this child, I should learn from this.

If my child could write a textbook, I think it may be a best seller. Because with all the self-help books I have read, not one has been so well formulated as the lessons that come with parenthood.

Maybe God has pre-programmed our children to teach us these lessons, maybe it is just the road we all must travel, or maybe like many things in life, it is the greatest challenges and the greatest difficulties which make us better people. We all then are students of error, and in this, I may have my Doctorate.