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Key Bible Verse: He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy Job 8:21.Bonus Reading:Psalm 126:1-6

I have taught my daughters to play hopscotch, jacks, and marbles. (And I hereby challenge any dad in America to a game of jacks. I'm really good.) We play board games. We used to play a very "sophisticated" game called Maid Marian and Robin Hood. I'd be the monster-like Sheriff of Nottingham, and I'd sweep up one of my daughters—the designated Maid Marian—in my arms and start to take her off to jail. The others would shoot make–believe arrows at me until I fell over dead. Then they'd all have to tickle me till I came back to life, and I'd start over by grabbing up the next "Maid Marian" with a roar. It was just plain, silly fun.

I place extraordinary value on times late at night when my wife and I are sitting with our daughters in the kitchen (usually someone is seated on the counter) and our conversation is light, fun, and filled with laughter.

If dads are always work, always discipline, always orders, always serious, our daughters will have a hard time believing that love is sometimes very lighthearted. Teach your daughters to take their work and callings seriously—but not themselves. There are too many joyless people who take themselves too seriously.

—Michael Farris in What a Daughter Needs from Her Dad

My Response: If I have both son(s) and daughter(s), which do I relate to best? How could I even things up?

Thought to Apply: Let your eyes light up when your children are around. Laugh more. Tell them how empty and quiet it is when they're not there.—Valerie Bell (writer)

Adapted from What a Daughter Needs from Her Dad (Bethany, 1996, 2004) by permission.

Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Help me, Lord, to be a constant, consistent presence in the life of my children, nudging them toward a life that pleases You.

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