I’m typing this out in the dark with Shelby asleep next to me, upside down and as per usual, no part of her is actually on top of any of her many pillows. She’s had a long week. In the daytime we’ve had summer camp, complete with pool days and carnival day. Then it was quick dinners before being whisked off to Vacation Bible School at church in the evenings (yesterday, she told me that Jesus takes care of the bird and flowers and us too). Today, Saturday, she’s pooped from a homemade treasure hunt, a swim class and movie night—all in all, a cozy family summer day. 

The baby is in the other room with Stephy. Soren is cool as a cucumber and has thighs like Giants-era Saquon Barkley. He’s sociable. He’s a good napper. He’s got these cheeks that you just want to bury your nose in forever and ever. He’s chunky as all get out and his poops are legendary. I am a proud dad and a few minutes away from my sixth Father’s Day and my first as a father of two.

Some of these Father’s Day weekends have felt similar and some of them have felt different. This one feels like one of the different ones.

Somewhere between diaper changes and watching the chunkster grow out of all his baby clothes in record time, I’ve sensed something new. There’s something about being a father to a son that feels different. There’s a different kind of weight to it (and I’m not just talking about his thighs). With Shelby, I feel like I have a straightforward role: come home often and early, shower her with more kisses than she wants and sneak her out for donuts and frozen yogurt—treat her with the love, patience and respect that will set the tone for what she should come to expect from the people around her for the rest of her life (you know, easy stuff). 

With Soren, I’ve felt a different kind of weight of responsibility. Not heavier, but different. With him, there’s this need to leave footprints that are worth following. There’s a feeling that it’s not just important who I am when I’m home—it’s important who I am when I’m out in the world being the one whose name he bears. I can’t shake the feeling that I will owe him an explanation of who I am in these weird times. Am I being someone he can be proud of when we look back at this moment in history?

This weekend I’ve been distracted. There are some questions about vocation that keep rattling in my brain. I’ve been struggling at work and so naturally, I’m overthinking and monologuing to myself too much. While this is not uncommon for me, it’s usually a good sign that I need a reset. I’m mostly trying to take my mind off things by binge-watching The Newsroom, ripping booster packs of Final Fantasy: Magic the Gathering and playing with AI tools to make the retro-futuristic graphic novel set in space. I don’t know that these diversions are helping much (although my monologues have gotten snappier from absorbing Sorkin). I’m also pretty sure that sentence alone could get me a script for adderall at Walgreens. 

The thing is, I’m off-kilter. I’m tilted. As the kids might say, I’m crashing out. It feels like I’ve accumulated so much disappointment in leaders and systems over the past few years that it’s like my nerve endings are raw and I’ve become a cagey, bitter curmudgeon. Sometimes I think I can’t nd my church, but is that just a lifetime of disappointment in the Asian-American church snowballing to a head? Am I mad at these folks or am I mad because I think that if it weren’t for some people who look and sound like them, I’d still be a pastor right now? Am I mad at Biola because students are actually languishing unnoticed or am I using it as an analogue for my country that has been hi-jacked by out-of-touch octogenarians that have walked through the door of opportunity and shut it behind them? I’ve got so much anger and frustration built up inside me about so many things.

I was talking to Stephy in the car about some of these thoughts, and in her usual wisdom she asked me, “Did you pray?”

And so, I tried praying. 

Prayer for me sometimes looks like weird conversations where I’m speaking Chinese for some reason (a long time ago, when Stephy asked me why I default to Chinese with her and Shelby despite being terrible at it, I told her that it’s the language I speak to my family). Sometimes prayer is disjointed and distracted and I jump to conclusions on what God’s response is and take off before He can finish his sentence. This time, I felt like I was spamming Him with a torrent of images and feelings, like a montage from Nolan or Aronofsky. That’s when it became clear to me—I think more than anything, I’m mad at God. I’m mad that He’s allowed all these things to happen— the big ones and little ones. I’m mad because I don’t see much hope on the horizon and things are moving rapidly downwards in a chaotic spiral as our society devolves into the sad, entropic flushing of a toilet (you see what I mean about Sorkin?). I’m so mad at Him that most of my bible readings lately have begun with a Bible Gateway search for the phrase “how long?”

But after some prayer (read: flood of profanity-laced rhetorical questions), other things emerged too. Somewhere in there, God incepted me with a deep sense of gratitude. Despite my anger and disappointment, I have to admit that my life rules. It absolutely rules

Soren is healthy and sweet and will out-squat the rest of our whole family once he figures out how to walk. He spends the daytime with the same caring nanny that took sweet care of Shelby when she was his age. Someone we trust. He’s in love with his sister and cackles with joy every time she turns her gaze on him. He’s just a perfect little dude.

This morning, when Shelby was running around collecting clues for her homemade treasure hunt, she did it by reading clues by herself. It’s just three letter words for now, but she’s doing my favorite thing there is to do—reading. This afternoon in the pool, she stuck her arms out to the pool noodle and kicked her way to her instructor and back. She had this grin on her face when she was doing it, and now it feels like her smile took up so much space in my brain, that there was less space for the anger. The church I’m sometimes mad at taught her about Jesus, and she’s doing cute dance moves to “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,” one of the few Christian songs I genuinely like (I may or may not occasionally accidently cry when I listen to the old Crowder version). She’s wearing a tiny Biola T-shirt that has become a part of her pajama rotation, a reminder of a place that for all intents and purposes has done right by me and my family.

Stephy is a smokeshow—pretty as the day we met and just as leggy. She’s an anchor for the rudderless dinghy of my windswept brain and the truest home I’ve ever known. She’s endured three moves and just as many career changes. She’s taken more than she should onto her shoulders because I’ve chosen to do things I love doing. She should be able to hang out all day with the chunkster, snacking on cream puffs and drinking 凍檸茶, but she married a broke minister, so she’s slinging spreadsheets and footnotes. She’s just the best mom, I can’t even explain. I don’t deserve her and everybody else better shut up so she doesn’t find out.

It feels like God is reminding me that I can settle down a little bit because I’ve got it good. This Father’s Day, I don’t think He’s reminding me of what I’m fighting for. I think He knows I’m in the fight. I’m fighting for a kinder and more equitable world for my kids. I’m fighting for a more decent and hopeful world with real victories that earn that hope. I’m fighting for a world where Shelby and Soren can enjoy and take for granted the things I never had. This year, I think He’s reminding me that if He can take care of me, a manic depressive, loose cannon and make me someone he’s trusted with two perfect kiddos—He can take care of the rest of things too. I just have to keep proving Him o’er and o’er.