Matt Testimony – Part 7
(Part 7/11)
“I’ll work a couple extra hours tonight because I know my kid will find it really valuable if I can show up at her school for her dance. It seems insignificant but I think it’s significant. And I think I’ve seen the payoff. I don’t get to every AYSO game, but I was there at the first and they remember, and I can talk to them about it later. I think some parents feel like if they can’t do it all, they don’t do it at all. Just know the right times to come in.
For both my kids, it’s been showing up to any new activity, at the very least, attending the first one. First impressions are everything, right? We remember the first everything, our first job, our first girlfriend, our first time that we did anything. It’s the time we are most anxious, trying out for a new team or whatever it is. It always carries that anxiety. As a dad I might be busy at times, I might not make every soccer game, although I try, but at least the first one. Don’t miss the first one. That’s when they have the highest anxiety. That’s when they’re looking across the field to make sure you’re looking at them. Any comfort or strength they’re grabbing is from that thing. First time performing on a stage, first time going to school, first time hanging out with certain friends, first time doing a new activity. For me, I’ve made it a theme in my life where if I can be consistent with all those firsts it will really matter to them.
I think for me being a Dad, at some point I would like to create a sense of stability for my kids so they can thrive. But then in doing that now I’m almost like they’re almost spoiled! ‘You don’t even know what you have! The fact your mom even cooks is amazing and you’re complaining!’ Well, maybe that’s still better off than what I had.
People say, ‘Oh well you turned out fine.’ Ya, I turned out fine but maybe I could have turned out better. Maybe I had enough inside of me to do better things, bigger things, more influential things than what I’m doing now because I was able to make it but maybe I had it in me to do a lot of other really cool things had my parents got behind me. My parents had no value for schoolwork and no value to commitment to certain things. Well maybe if I had that in my life I could have done even more. I was able to get here not having any of that, if I would have had it maybe I would have been able to do even more. I don’t know. Ultimately at the end, as an adult now, I just try to do my best to navigate to be obedient to what God told me to do anyway.”