Today when I came home from work, my one year-old ran to me, like he does.  He pointed into the living room and told me something that I couldn't understand, and then he wanted me to hold him, something I had also wanted all day.  So I held him and he held me, with his little arms around my neck and his head on my shoulder.  Parents will know what I mean when I say that his little head is just the sweetest smell I know of.

Holding him that way reminded me of something that a friend of mine says from time to time.  This particular friend's work requires him to travel frequently, and like me, he is a husband and a father.  Every time we talk about his work and travels, he mentions that his trips are always planned to provide the quickest way home.  He even told me of one particular trip where he forewent sleep to go ahead and fly home to be there before one of his children went to bed on her birthday.

This is the kind of man that I want to call "friend."  I have never understood, and I hope I never do, when a man seems to not want to go home, and I have known some who live that way.  I don't want to presume to know what circumstances could lead to that kind of situation.  But I do know that as the man in my home, I set the tone, the precedents, and the expectations.  I will surround myself with the Word of the Lord, my family, and with men like my friend.