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THIS IS MY SON IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED By: Cortland Jones Photography: Submitted by author
a father, in a way I didn’t as a child, to affirm him, sow and pour into him life-giving affirmations and model humility, love and manhood for him in a manner that aids him in having an example that he can make use of as a legacy to pass on to his future children, family and community.
“This is my son in whom I am well pleased.”
B
efore becoming a parent, while I was a fatherless adult child, I often heard a minister mention as he preached recounting what was written in the scripture about how God felt about His Son Jesus, that this minister’s father would say about him. It resonated with me then. So much so, when I became a parent, a father to my son, I began to say the same thing about my son that this minister said his father had spoken about him. Looking back I understood why it resonated with me, because of the power and impact affirmation has on those who are beneficiaries of it, especially men. My son is blessed to have
SUMMER 2O24 EDITION
Wise, strong and self-controlled were the three character traits my son identified in a conversation to me about what it meant to be a man or how he defined who a man is when he was still a teenager. Every so often, when we would talk about a challenge, situation or circumstance he was facing I would ask him which manhood attributes (wisdom, strength, self-control) would he need to employ in order to effectively deal with what he was facing. It was during those adolescent years that I would often ask myself, “How do you help your child or teach them how to be hungry for something?” One of the biggest challenges as a parent and father is allowing space and room for your child to discover and figure out how to find their way. We would talk often about the Prodigal Son from the perspective about not being in a hurry to grow up. Whatever my son expressed interest in, wanting to be a policeman, sports broadcaster, enlist in the armed forces, I sought to introduce or expose him to people and places within our family and www.speakupsismagazine.com | 03
