Why Everyone Needs A Reversible Dad

He’s hunched over a piece of plain white paper, green crayon in hand.

When his tongue peeks out from between the window of his slender lips, I know he’s concentrating hard.

 Kindergarten-scrawl begins to take shape on the page, and I hear him sounding out the letters under his breath as he writes.

Duh….. Aaaaaaa………Duh.  

He mumbles the word slowly at first, awkwardly blending the alphabet sounds together.

Duh….Aaaa….Duh. 

The knuckles on his hands are white from squeezing those letters right out of that green Crayola.
And an exasperated sigh punctuates his progress as he scratches the last D on the page.

I brace myself for a revolt, the crayon-throwing, I-can’t-do-this sort of tantrum that often accompanies my littlest boy’s pencil-and-paper endeavors.

But then his slumped shoulders straighten and his head turns toward mine.

He waves the emerald crayon in his hand like a pom-pom and flashes me a toothless grin.

He launches himself off of the chair and spills the revelation that has set his green eyes ablaze.

“Dad’s name is reversible!”
I picture Joshua’s spring jacket, the one with fleece on one side and a slick plaid print on the other.

“Reversible?” I ask with a chuckle.

I’m certain we’re having a moment of linguistic confusion, so I run to the coat room and grab the navy jacket from the jangle of coats hanging on the wall hooks.

When I return to the kitchen, my brain-haired boy is once again hunched over his paper, adding the finishing touches to his Daddy’s card.

“Do you mean reversible like your coat?” I ask, holding up the jacket as a question mark.

“Yeah,” my littlest boy says, happy that I’m catching on.

“See?”

He points to the wobbly word on the Father’s Day card he’s been making.

He runs his finger across the green letters, tracing their shaky shapes from left to right.
“D-A-D spells Dad,” he says matter-of-factly.

I nod, agreeing without words.

“But look, Mom! Look! This is really funny.” Josh starts at the end of those three letters and sweeps his hand from right to left.  “It spells the same thing backwards!”

My six-year-old leaps up on his chair like a living exclamation point.

And between giddy giggles he sing-songs, “Spell it forward; spell it backward. Dad. Dad. Dad.”

Joshua grabs my hand and we whirl around the kitchen in a goofy dance.

And as I swing my littlest boy in circles around me, I think of that verse I’d read not long ago, the one I’d scribbled in my journal.

Because I need to remember that my Father encircles me, too.

I need to remember that my waltz through this world has been framed with His presence.

 Every step. Every day.

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Psalm 139:5

 I think about Joshua’s amazing revelation, and I smile as we spin.

God is the ultimate reversible Dad. 

If I glance backwards into my past, I see Him there.

If I strain forward into my future, I spy Him up ahead.

Better than a reversible jacket that I’ll soon outgrow, the Lord’s got me covered for a lifetime.

And no matter which way you read it– forward, backward, upside down—my Father’s name ALWAYS spells faithful.