An Introduction.

My father always told me, "God loves you no matter what, but if you keep failing the test you are just gonna have to keep retaking it.  So, you can either buckle down so you can move on to the next grade or stay in this one.  Either way, God loves you just the same.  But, I don't wanna stay in third grade forever, so I figure I gotta learn my lessons quick so I can move on."

I suppose this is what this blog is to be about... lessons.  Lessons handed down to me by my father who has always been wiser than he's known, kinder than he realized and more generous than folks imagine. This collection of stories is my gift to my father, so that he might know how precious he is to all who know him, and that his legacy endures.  These words are so that my dad might be able to see himself through my eyes.

He taught me how to drive tractors, ride motorcycles and shoot guns... he also taught me how to be gentle, gracious and kind... to be generous beyond measure.  It's true I don't always apply his wisdom in ways that he would like, but the lessons have been learned all the same.  I am unsure of who may come across these pages, who will read them or who will dismiss them, but I write them all the same.  I promise to be more honest here than I am perhaps anywhere else.  There will be many stories over the next days or months that not two people know of as yet.  I may change the names in some and leave them in others.  Some will be of my childhood and others of being an adult.  Some may be good and others bad, but all are of love.  Some will be only about my dad and others only about myself, but all are because he has loved me well.  If you decide that some are boastful, read them only as testimonies of my father's love for his daughter, because almost everything good about me is because of him.