My dear boys,
There is something I want you to know, and I want to say it as simply as I can: I am still trying to get to you.
I have not forgotten you. I have not moved on from you. I have not decided that life without you is somehow okay. There are circumstances and decisions outside of my control that continue to keep us apart, and as much as I wish I could change those things today, I cannot. But I am trying.
This week, I had an opportunity to ask your mom the question that has been on my heart for a very long time: “When do I get to see the boys?”
The answer was, “I don’t know.”
I don’t know either. I don’t think anyone knows. Most don’t even care. A father deleted from his family is normal in today’s society. I wish I knew something, when all of this separation might come to an end.
What I do know is that the last time I saw you was July 25, 2025, 429 days ago with zero contact. A lot of days have passed since then, and I can’t get those days back. That’s one of the hardest things for me to accept.
There is a verse in the Bible that I have been thinking about. In Joel 2:25, God tells His people: “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.”
The people Joel was speaking to had experienced terrible loss. Locusts had swept through the land and destroyed what they depended upon. Things that had taken a long time to grow disappeared, and God spoke about restoration.
That doesn’t mean He magically gave them those exact days back. Yesterday stays yesterday. We cannot rewind a calendar or go backward and relive what we missed. But God can take something that looks completely ruined and bring life out of it again. That’s what I pray for us.
I cannot get back the days I have missed with you. I cannot recreate everything that should have happened during this time. But I believe God can redeem what has been lost.
I believe there are new memories waiting for us. There are conversations we haven’t had yet, adventures we haven’t taken yet, and plenty of laughter still ahead of us. I believe there can come a day when we look back and realize that although we lost something precious, God didn’t allow the loss to become the end of our story.
There’s something else I want you to know about the time we’ve been apart. I’ve changed. I’ve spent a lot of time looking honestly at the father and man I was, including the things I did well and the things I wish I had done differently. I’ve made a lot of changes in my life, and I continue to make them. God has used this season to humble me, teach me, strengthen my faith and help me become a better father. Not a perfect father. I’ll never be that, but I believe I am a better man and a better dad today than I was before I was deleted from our family, and I want to keep growing.
More than anything, I want to be the kind of father who can teach you what it means to become men of God, not simply by telling you what the Bible says, but by trying to live it in front of you. I want you to see what it looks like for a man to admit when he’s wrong about things that actually happened, get back up when he falls, forgive when forgiveness is difficult, keep his word, love people when it hurts, and continue trusting God when he doesn’t understand what God is doing.
Recently, a friend of mine who has walked through hard times including divorce and remarriage said something to me that I don’t think I’ll ever forget:
“Keep choosing the kind of man you want your boys to look back on someday and say, ‘My dad followed Jesus through that.’”
Boys, that’s who I want to be. I want to be a dad who can admit when he’s wrong. A dad who gets back up after he falls. A dad who forgives. A dad who keeps his word. A dad who loves his sons when they are standing beside him and when they are far away. A dad who keeps praying when he doesn’t know how the story ends. And someday, when you’re grown men yourselves and you look back at this chapter of our lives, I hope that’s what you see.
I don’t want you to remember only that Dad fought to see you. I want you to remember who Dad became while he was waiting. I pray that someday I get to tell you all of this face-to-face instead of writing it on a screen.
Until then, remember this: You are my boys. I am your dad. Distance doesn’t change that. Time doesn’t change that, and I will keep becoming the kind of father who can help you become the men God created you to be. We can’t recover July 25, 2025, or any of the days that have passed since, but there are still days ahead of us, and I trust God with those days.
The God who spoke of restoring what the locusts had eaten is still a God of redemption and restoration.
I love you boys.
Dad
