Father's Day 2026 - I can finally put into words what I want in life.

I can finally put into words what I want in life.

It’s taken me 47 years, 26 years of marriage, and 23 years of fatherhood, but I think I’m finally there. I saw it clearly on Valentine’s Day this year.

My wife and I had just finished dinner at a fancy restaurant celebrating our love for each other. I had a three level seafood tower. I honestly can’t even remember what she ordered, but I’m guessing steak and lobster. I made the reservations back in October, so this wasn’t an afterthought, it was planned, intentional, and it was great.

As we walked out of the restaurant into the parking lot, I noticed something across the way. There was a grandpa with white hair and a white beard walking hand in hand with a little girl who couldn’t have been more than four or five. They were heading into Wendy’s, of all places, right there in the same parking lot as this super expensive restaurant.

And I looked at my wife and said, “That’s literally everything I want out of life.”

Not as a comparison. Not as a critique of the restaurant. And definitely not as a knock on my wife, because she is a huge part of my life and one of God’s greatest gifts to me.

It just hit me in that moment.

I don’t want anything more complicated than being that man someday. A grandpa taking his granddaughter out for ice cream. That’s it. That’s the dream. Simple on the surface, but I know it takes a lifetime of faithfulness, discipline, sacrifice, and walking closely with God to actually arrive there.

I’ve carried a principle with me since my early twenties. I don’t want to become an older man I’m ashamed of. I want to be a husband, father, and one day a grandfather who has lived in a way that honors God and blesses his family. Someone who can look his children and grandchildren in the eye without regret, because by God’s grace he stayed faithful in the small things.

That’s how I plan to get there.

Because I don’t just want a good ending, I want a faithful one. I want to finish my life having walked with God, loved my wife well, pointed my kids toward Jesus, and left something behind that lasts beyond me.

And honestly, I think most men understand this deep down. We’re not as complicated as we sometimes pretend to be. We want to be faithful. We want to be providers. We want to be men who live in a way that pleases God. And when the people we love speak life over us, something in us rises to meet it.

So this Father’s Day, I guess I want what I want every year.

Tell me I’m the best dad in the world, and I’ll spend the next year trying, by God’s grace, to live worthy of that calling. And one day, I hope it all leads to this simple picture: walking with my grandkids, hand in hand, to grab ice cream together, grateful to God for the mercy that brought me there.