Parenting on Purpose

It's not often that the Father of the Bride gets to speak at a wedding. Oftentimes, the only words are in response to the question, "Who presents this woman to be married to this man?" In that instance, it is normally a mild-mannered man, one who shuns the attention of the moment, who barely manages to whisper out the refrain, "I do."  A precious photo of a very special couple.  This was completely not what happened at a wedding I was at almost three weeks ago. In response to that question, the Father of the Bride seemed to have an entire speech prepared for the Groom, "I present to you the key to my daughter's heart, " he declared. "I have protected her heart all her life until this point, and now I am handing over this responsibility to you." And with a firm voice, he presented this solemn reminder: "Remember that you will not be able to do this on your own, but only with God's help, and by spending time with Him daily....

My Uncle Ann passed away last week. He was 63. If you were a casual visitor to his wake, and listened to all the eulogies by his mother, siblings, children and friends, one word would echo about Joe Tan Kim Ann - "generous". A man of very few words, Uncle Ann went out of his way to help others, quite often at his own personal expense. Many a story was told of how Uncle Ann would take in a person on the street and invited him to work at his cleaning company - "just because". And there were the times when he loaned out money to those in need, sometimes without them ever returning him the cash. I was a recepient of this generosity as well - many a time I would ask him for help to move furniture from one location to another, and he would always comply, offering his men and his van to help me transport the items. And when I asked how much I should pay, all he said was, "Just give the men coffee money - that's enough." On the last occassion almost fiv...