It's Time to Show Up, Dad!

 Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama! 😊

The heart is full this morning and, in so many ways, I am going back to the first and greatest burden God placed on my heart…men showing up and being the best Dads they are capable of becoming. After the call to love, care for, and serve my Beautiful Bride, I believe this is the greatest call on my life – to love, care for, and serve my three Tender Warriors. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of hours I have spent studying my Bible, the countless fervent prayers, the books I have read, the seminars and podcasts I have listened to, all in the pursuit of being the very best husband and Dad I can possibly be.

The statistics are clear…. According to the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau, 18.3 million children, 1 in 4, live without a biological, step, or adoptative father in the home. And the consequences? According to fatherhood.org, research shows when a child is raised in a father-absent home, he or she is affected in the following ways…

4X greater risk of poverty

 More likely to have behavioral problems

2X greater risk of infant mortality

 More likely to go to prison

More likely to commit crime

7X more likely to become pregnant as a teen

 More likely to face abuse and neglect

 More likely to abuse drugs and alcohol

2X more likely to suffer obesity

 2X more likely to drop out of high school

I don’t even know what to say…it breaks my heart. And as I sit here, I am so mindful that these things are the fruit, the outcome. And the root? It is the heart of the little boy or little girl who yearns to have a man tell them – in word and deed - that they love them, they believe in them, that they see the greatness in them, that they are for them, and that they will show up every day!

This morning I simply want to beg the men, the fathers, whether biological or not, to show up and give your very best to the precious little souls that you are blessed to have in your lives. It is not about you!!! Please stop fighting for your inadequacies!!! We are all inadequate…show up anyways! Love them simply because who they are, not who you want them to be, think they should be, or in hopes of fulfilling your lost goals and dreams!!! This is their journey, and you are blessed to be a part of it…please don’t forfeit this great opportunity and blessing!!! Perhaps you are thinking, “But I have screwed up to many times”…we all have! One of the greatest lessons we can teach these precious souls is that we are all flawed, all broken, that accountability is real, and that forgiveness can, and should be, asked for and given! Let’s get over the idea of perfection – for ourselves or others. It does not exist! But real life, showing up, getting dirty, and fighting through the different season of life together is what makes this all so wonderful! But you have to show up! Every day! Mentally and physically!

O.K., so Kev is pretty fired up this morning! Here is the deal, I am simply asking you, men, to take the honor and privilege of being a father or father-figure seriously. We don’t have to always know what to do or have all the answers. The truth is none of us do. What we do need to do is show up, fully present, and simply give our best to each day…every single one of us can do this! Please, I beg you, they need you.

As I type these words, I am mindful that there are 50, 60, 70, and 80-year old men and women who never had a Dad show up – mentally and/or physically. I know that pain. I can also sit here and testify that Romans 8:28 is true – And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Your fathers’ failures do not define you. God loves you and he has a great plan and purpose for your life. Please lay down the burden that you were never meant to carry. You can forgive your fathers failings, whether he ever asked you to or not, whether he has ever recognized his failures. Forgiveness is about you, not him. And it is you that it sets free. Again, I am not philosophizing here…I have walked this hard road. If you haven’t, please let these chains be broken this morning. You can live different; you don’t have to be held back by the pain of the past.

Earlier this week I was listening to Focus on the Family. Lee Strobel was the guest, and the talk was titled, Leaving a Legacy of Faith for Your Children. I want to share a brief excerpt from the transcript.

“The study said a fervent faith cannot compensate for a distant dad. Said a father who is an exemplar, a pillar of the church but doesn’t provide warmth and affirmation to his kid, does not have kids who follow him in faith. Isn’t that interesting? What a reminder for dads and granddads. The study found that even if you read your Bible every day, even if you prayed every day, even if you went to church every week, your children will probably not be attracted to your faith unless you have a warm and affirming relationship with them. That is the key.” 

How powerful is that?! We can do all these things however what our children want, what we all want, is a warm, affirming relationship. We can all do that – simply love them for who they are, where they are, every day.

I want to close by sharing this which I found on gotquestions.org when I typed, “What does the Bible say about being a man?”

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.” (1 Corinthians 16: 13 14). According to these verses, a true man is vigilant against danger, faithful to the truth, brave in the face of opposition, persistent through trials, and, above all, loving.”

Above all, loving… It’s time to man up, Fellas!

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious families, and please stay well! 😊

Kev

Be Present

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama! I am so excited for this day! It is going to be a great day...I can just feel it! :)

This morning I want to do two things; 1) I want to make us all aware of something that was truly shocking to me when I read it, and 2) I want to challenge us all to live this day, this life, fully present.

I started a new book titled, Win The Day: 7 Daily Habits to Help You Stress Less & Accomplish More by Mark Batterson. The excerpt I am going to share comes from the Introduction...yeah, pretty sure this is gonna be a great book! :)

"According to psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, the average person spends 46.9 percent of their time thinking about something other than what they're doing in the present moment. We're half-present half the time, which means we're half-alive."

Does that strike you as profoundly as it does me?! I don't want to be present, truly present, half the time and I surely don't want to be half-alive! And, sadly, having read this earlier this week I have become acutely aware this week of the times when I am doing something and thinking about something else.

I want to challenge us all to become fully alive. Let's intentionally choose to live fully present in every moment. Easy? No. Possible? I honestly don't know. I can tell you this, for me I have found it will be nearly impossible without the help of the Lord...seriously! :)

Now, when I am talking about being fully present, I am not going to the "Don't text and drive"...too easy of an example and we all know the dangers associated with doing it. Let's go here instead...

• To intentionally spend time reading the Bible and praying and being fully present in those moments. You know one of the areas I have noticed I struggle the most this week? Prayer time! I will be praying and all the sudden I find myself thinking about or rehearsing a conversation I am going to have at work. It happens so seamlessly and all of the sudden I am no longer praying but rather trying to solve some issue at work. Chasing squirrels!
• To be fully present when your spouse or partner is talking to you. To look them in the eye, to give them your complete attention and to be fully present in that moment. No squirrel chasing!
• How about the kids? When they yell, "Mom!" or "Dad!" for the 100th time...to turn, look at them and to give them your full, undivided attention. To the parents of young children; I totally get how this can get so tiring and frustrating...every one of us, if we are honest, has been there. I will simply tell you, as the Dad of mostly grown kids, those are sweet words that will soon be gone, leaving a profound silence. We can't stop time and truth be told, we really don't want time to stop. We want them to learn, grow, and become all they are capable of becoming which means they will eventually leave us. We can however live each of those moments fully by being fully present. A critically important choice with incredibly significant consequences. I think of the quote by Catherine M. Wallace, "Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been the big stuff." Give your children and yourself the gift of your full presence...you will not regret it.
• The people before you - friends, co-workers, the people at the store. Again, to look them in the eye, to ignore the buzzing of your phone, and give them the greatest gift of all - your full, undivided attention. We all want to be known, seen, and heard. How drastically different would our world be if we all were truly present with one another when we were together? If we really valued and appreciated everyone?

Look, I know this is not easy and none of us will achieve perfection. Let's not get caught up in what we cannot do and please, let's not fight for our inadequacies. Instead lets simply strive to be intentional, to do the best we can, with God's help, every day. While we cannot stop time nor make any moment last forever, we can live each and every moment more fully.

Before closing I want to share another excerpt from the book. I found this incredibly profound as well and I just have to share with you all! :)

"The Lord's Prayer is three-dimensional - it helps us nullify past mistakes, navigate present circumstances, and negotiate future challenges. Jesus prayed past tense: "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." You cannot change the past, but you can leverage its lessons. Then you've got to pull a Frozen and let it go. Jesus prayed future tense: "Lead us not into temptation." You cannot control the future, but you can make predecisions today that will pay dividends tomorrow. Finally, Jesus prayed present tense: "Give us this day our daily bread." We want God to provide more so we can trust Him less, but He loves us too much to do that. God will never give us more than we can steward, which is one reason time is divided into days. All we have to do is live in the way He intended - in day-tight compartments.

Do you remember the expiration date on manna? One day. How about the deadline on anger? Sundown. When are God's mercies made new? Every morning. How often are we told to take up our crosses? Daily. And when are we told to rejoice and be glad? Today! The twenty-four-hour rule is everywhere you look! In fact, it's as old s day one.

There was even and there was morning, the first day."

Pretty profound! Let's live this day fully present!

Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.blogspot.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious families, and please stay well! :)

Kev

Seek Joy Not Guilt

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama! This new day right here is sure to be a good one...I can feel it! :)

We have another special guest writing this weeks Happy Friday! I have the privilege of serving with Barbie Terry vocationally. She is a remarkable woman, wife, mother, leader, and friend. She has a real passion for working Mom's and encouraging them to embrace all they were created to be. Like all of us, her passion is born from struggle, challenge, and ultimately, perseverance. I have no doubt you will enjoy her inspirational message. :)

Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com. 

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, cherish your precious families, enjoy this day, and please stay well! :)

Kev

When I was given the opportunity to write this week’s Happy Friday, I was honored. I thought a lot about the message I wanted to share which is Seek Joy Not Guilt. I hope that by sharing my story, I can help you see that there is nothing wrong with prioritizing what’s most important and you deserve to seek joy. I learned last week that the word seek in one form or another is used 309 times in the Bible. What we seek, we often find. We should constantly seek joy but too many times we allow time, worry, society, others and even ourselves to steal our joy and replace it with guilt, however, can often overcome this by knowing our priorities.  The most prevalent time this has happened to me is with the internal battle between being a good mother and having a career. The truth is, I was never that kid that wanted a big wedding and a house full of kids. I did however, dream of a college degree, a career and a husband that would support me. Knowing this dream, I’ve been immensely blessed more than I deserve, but for so long, I felt guilty for what I wanted. Looking back, it’s pretty clear that God started working on my heart when he put Eli in my life. This kid had me driving 3 hours one way for an hour-long t-ball game or a school event just to turn around and drive back- but there was guilt. Instead of finding joy in that moment, I found myself wondering if I were being selfish for hanging onto my career too tightly. Afterall, I was exhausted and my job was the only thing keeping me on the road. The truth is, the travel isn’t what I felt guilty about; I felt guilty because I was constantly checking e-mails at games and was constantly checking the clock at work. I was never 100% present anywhere. Four years later God opened the door for me to move closer to home with an even better career opportunity. There was joy and wedding bells and then Avery and long hours at work...and guilt. Even without the commute, I was never fully present. I wish I could blame this on someone else, but the truth is, I love my job. I sincerely with all of my heart love what I do. I get lost in my work just as others get lost in a good book or movie and that’s not something I deserve to feel guilty about, in fact, it’s something that should bring joy.  But there was often guilt because I had the lines blurred when it came to priorities. I didn’t know where each priority stopped and the next started, which caused guilt. There are people that I’ve crossed paths with that I would like to be angry with for judging me for trying to juggle Muffins with Mom and work but in reality, they had the same drive and passion for a career as I do, our priorities just didn’t align. On the other hand, God has also placed people in my life that helped me see that being fully present in both worlds is something we all deserve to be unapologetic about, and in my opinion, is critical in order to have peace. So, if you are like me and have made the choice to be a working mother give yourself some grace. Know up front that some days at the office will end at 1:00 in the afternoon because your family needs you but also know that inevitably some workdays will end late into the evening and someone else may get the honor of bedtime that night, and that is ok because you know in your heart that you have aligned your priorities and planned your time and you aren’t missing the big stuff. I promise you, when you start being 100% present unapologetically, you don’t feel guilty or torn and that is a joy that we all deserve. From the bottom of my heart, I challenge each of you to be fully present in your day wherever you may be, take in all of the memories, never let your priorities get out of order and seek joy in each moment because the years pass so quickly when looking into little eyes.

Maximize Your Days

 Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day is beginning to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama! :)

What a great treat this morning! My oldest son, Payton, has written an incredible message for all of us this morning! I hope you all enjoy!

Please don't hesitate to contact me at any time if there is ever anything I can do for any of you. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious families, and please stay well! :)

Kev

Good Morning and Happy Friday Friends!

I hope and trust this message finds you having a great morning and that you are ready for what will surely be a great day and a great weekend!

My dad is currently on his way to visit me here in Springfield, MO and I am so fired up to be able to spend a weekend with him. I have been given his ultimate blessing to be able to write Happy Friday again, and as I reached out to my dad a few weeks ago expressing my interest in writing another Happy Friday, we decided that today would be the perfect day to take over so that he can get up here quicker. 😊

The purpose of this Happy Friday is two-fold: one, I am going to share a little bit of my heart and my journey these past few months, and two, offer a perspective of what I believe it truly means to maximize our days. Let’s jump right in!!

A few months ago, after finishing up grad school, I was blessed to be given an opportunity to join the Athletics Department here at Missouri State University (GO BEARS) and let me tell you, what an incredible experience it has been thus far! However, I would be lying if it has been anything short of easy, as making a transition is never an easy task, especially when you have such high expectations of yourself. I have always taken great pride in what I do, both to develop myself personally and professionally and the work ethic that I approach every day with, however, I noticed that I was starting to view my days as strenuous, taxing, and unfulfilling.

I decided to pray about it and came to the resolution that the choices I make every single day are either going to take me one step closer to where I wanted to be or are going to hold me back. Each day we have an opportunity when we wake up, it is neither good nor bad, it is simply a new opportunity. The amazing thing is – we ultimately get to determine what we mold each day and each opportunity into. One of my favorite quotes that I have heard comes from Mark Cuban, and he says, “Always wake up with a smile knowing that today you are going to have fun accomplishing what others are too afraid to do.” Wow, what a profound statement from such a successful man.

Whether that be challenging yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually, each and every single day, we have the opportunity to grow and we have the opportunity to simply become the best versions of ourselves.

Where I think I struggled, and where I think others may be in the same boat, is that we tend to view each day with a “have to” mentality. Jon Gordon, a positive thinking coach and author, amongst other things, preaches on the principle of “have to” vs. “get to.” Simply put, just like Mark Cuban stated, we have the choice every day to approach it as either having to or getting to do things. Of becoming our best versions and outperforming others, or not. What I think is beautiful, is that we have the ultimate choice. No one can tell us how to live our days, sure we have commitments we must fulfill, but we GET TO choose how we are going to spend our days. If we want to truly make changes, if we want to truly feel comfortable with who we are and the lives we live, we ultimately have to choose what we spend our time on. There are 24 hours in a day, and each day our actions will be a result of the things we choose to prioritize. How are you going to maximize your day?

I want to close with this quote, and I apologize as I do not have an author… luckily you have Google if you so choose to want to know who it was 😉 “Success does not come from pie-in-the-sky thinking. It is the result of consciously doing something each day that will add value to your overall success.”

Let me challenge all of us to do just that each day.. consciously do something that will add value to the all too important aspects of our lives. Want to improve your physical health? Stop making excuses, just do something physically active! Want to improve your mental state? Do something that makes you happy! Want to experience fulfillment in your day? Serve someone else, for it is better to give than to receive! Want to improve your spiritual health? Spend a couple of minutes in the word, or praying to God, just do something!

Life is too short and too valuable to waste it doing things that we do not want to. Be intentional about maximizing your days and becoming the best version of yourself, the one that you will be proud of at the end of the day. I know it is easier said than done but take it from someone who has been working tirelessly to improve the way I approach my days, just take the first step to becoming who you want to be by taking an intentional step in whatever direction it may be.

I hope you all have a great weekend and that you choose to do things that bring you happiness, you deserve it!

Payton