Skip to content ↓

Working Man Hands

Several years ago I wrote a little Father’s Day article for my dad and called it “Working Man Hands.” This year I took the opportunity to lengthen and improve the article and then submitted it to Boundless Magazine. They were pleased to print it at their site. I thought you might enjoy it. It goes like this:

Like most little boys, I idolized my father as a child. You would have had a difficult time convincing me that there was anyone smarter, faster or stronger than my dad. I really did believe it when I told my friends “my dad can beat up your dad!”

And it may well have been true.

Dad was a landscaper, after all, and for eight months of every year he spent just about every waking hour hauling loads of soil from his truck to the gardens and heaving enormous rocks to make sure they looked just right. Though this took an obvious physical toll on Dad, it left him stronger than an ox.

I loved to wrestle with my dad. With my sisters I used to yell, “Can we beat you up tonight, Dad?” But when we used to stage our little battles, we could make no headway against him. Though I would run at him and hit him with all that I had, even with a full head of steam I could not knock him off-balance. With my three sisters swarming around him, hanging onto his legs and wrapped around his neck, we were still no match. He would grab us with his rough, leathery hands, give us a whisker rub with his day’s growth of beard, and toss us aside like we were barely even there.

I’ll never forget his hands — those rock hard hands. They were working man hands…

Continue Reading at Boundless.


  • Crash and Burn

    When Christians Crash and Burn

    The pictures quickly made their way around the world—pictures of an aircraft lying upside down in the snow just beyond runway 23 at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. On February 17, Delta flight 4819 landed hard, shearing off the right wing and flipping over before finally sliding to a stop. Remarkably, despite the crash and subsequent…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 24)

    A La Carte: Wokeness as a tax / The religion of wellness / Freckles, thigh gaps, and beauty / The 50 most edifying films / If I have matching dishes but not love / The Bible and sexuality / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Pastoral Prayer

    A Pastoral Prayer

    Every now and again I like to share an example of a pastoral prayer from Grace Fellowship Church. I do this because there are few examples of pastoral prayers online and I thought these may serve to inspire themes, passages, or ideas as other pastors and elders prepare to lead their churches in prayer. Please…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (March 22)

    A La Carte: In case I die unexpectedly / The daily midlife crisis / Anora and the end of #MeToo / Building the habit of family worship / We are not Númenóreans / Iain Murray / and more.

  • The Future of New Calvinism

    The Future of New Calvinism

    I was intrigued by Aaron Renn’s recent article The Maturation of New Calvinism. His thesis is that “New Calvinism has shifted from an ‘All-Star team’ model designed to exert influence over the broader evangelical world to a post-superstar model that primarily serves its own community. This represents the maturity of the movement, perhaps putting it…