“The work by which a man becomes trustworthy”

Greg Cello:

Marriage has a way of exposing the parts of us that solitude allows us to hide, and fatherhood intensifies the exposure. The home becomes the place where a man discovers whether he is capable of giving himself without first calculating what will be returned to him; it becomes, at its best, the place where God steadily removes the illusion that a meaningful life can be built upon self-protection. The work is not glamorous, and it will not always feel triumphant, but it is the work by which a man becomes trustworthy to the people who know him best.

Over many years, that trust becomes the hidden structure beneath a child’s life. He comes to understand that love does not vanish when the house grows loud, when money is tight, when tempers fail, when bodies are tired, or when the people he loves become difficult to love. He learns that strength is not a man’s ability to remain untouched by other people’s needs, but his willingness to give himself steadily to what God has placed in his care: his wife, his children, his home, his work, his prayers, and the particular life that has been entrusted to him.