The Manliest Men Who Ever Manned...

Yep, I'm finally launching this series, and I know you've all been writhing in anticipation. Like I said before, I just want to profile men who have gone before me and shown me what it means to be a man following after God, and just being manly in general. I'll do the not-so-surprising thing and start with my dad (Phil if ya need a name). Proving his studliness at a fairly young age, he married a divorced woman with two children... while in med school. Now the first part is heroic enough. Lesser men would see the two children and run like the wind (and others I'm sure would have hang-ups with a divorced woman), but the pops aint lesser men. He saw my mother for the gem that she was (and is), saw Jeremy and Josh for the blessing they were (and are), and did what it took to seal the deal. Out of love for them he married the woman and adopted my brothers, as a manly man does, all the while putting himself through med school. And it is not an easy field in medicine that he has chosen. He is a perinatologist, which is fancy talk for someone that treats mothers having complications in pregnancy. It's a taxing line of work that sees a lot of life in the womb that never comes to term. I'll admit that the situation at home probably hasn't been a breeze for him either, as there are six of us kids in the family, and we didn't always make life easy on him. But he worked his tail off to provide for a family, even leading us through the difficulty of a mother battling with breast cancer. He'll admit he has done many things wrong, as we all have and will, but the fact of the matter is that he raised six kids, and we all get along and find joy in each other, which I believe is impressive. Most of all he has succeeded in the two paramount fatherly duties. He has loved God and he has loved his wife. He has consistently shown his five boys what it means to be madly in love with a good woman, and has shown his daughter how she should be loved. And above all, in good times and bad, in the rough patches, he has kept his faith and continually pointed his family toward Christ. This is the chief task of a father, and I am ever thankful that I was not raised by a foolish boy but one of the manliest men who ever manned.