A blameless Life

I will be careful to lead a blameless life. (Psalm 101:2)
As he watched his young son sleep peacefully, Tom thought to himself: I really am a father. Since his son was nearly nine years old, the idea of his being a father was nothing new. What was new was his comprehension of all that it means to be a father. The revelation came slowly but once Tom was conscious of it, he could not get it out of his mind, and in thinking of what a father really is, he could not help but think of his own childhood. He remembered his father leaning over the old 1957 Chevy pickup truck working far into the night to rebuild the engine. Dad had already put in a full day of work; yet the truck engine needed to be rebuilt and there was no one else to do it. A second scene played across Tom's mind, and he saw his father sitting at the table eating a late dinner alone. It was close to 10 p.m., and he had finally arrived home from his 14-hour workday. He recalled seeing his father at a church workday mowing the grass, trimming the hedges, and cleaning out the flower beds. More than anything else, his father epitomized the word responsible and, for Tom, the knowledge that his own children are now looking to him to be an example just as he looked to his father was quite humbling. As Tom gently closed the bedroom door, the words of Thomas Morell came to mind. "The first great gift we can bestow on others is a good example." Like Tom and his father, we can give the gift of a good example to our children each and every day. (Day Break with God)