Deliberate love.

My dad holds 2 jobs. He's a humble carpenter by day and helps out at a fishball factory on some nights. He is no workaholic, but insists on almost never taking an MC even when he is sick. According to my dad, he does not want to take an MC because this disqualifies him from getting a 'hardworking worker' bonus every month. According to me, my dad deliberately loves my family.

A few months ago my dad was really quite sick, but insisted on going to work and holding out till he finished the workday. Then he went to the company-appointed medical practice nearby so that it is almost cost-free. Yesterday he was down with flu again, yet he rushed home from his day job to shower and rush off to his night job, with no time for dinner. All i could do was ask whether he had enough to eat when he came back, and do the dishes. Sometimes I am awed by his love, even the humble love from my natural father.

My father is the 'traditional' strong and silent type, never very expressive. But he shows his love through asking important questions like "do you have enough to spend/eat?". I love my dad but sometimes i too do not know how to show it. Even though i have been to the US and to the South, hugged strangers whose names i don;t even remember. I guess the context is really different.

My dad makes breakfast for me whenever i have to wake up early, whether i like it or not. I'm not really a breakfast person but my dad seems to choose to remember my younger times when i did not mind bread with milo. It had been a long time since I had breakfast made by my dad, until I worked as a teaching intern recently. And it was just like my schooling/JC days; bread with jam, washed down with over-sweet milo. I still did not entirely like it but i started appreciating and loving my dad more. He is such a simple man of deliberate love despite not expressing it much to me. This is enough.

My dad washes the dishes even after working two jobs while I sometimes just get obsessed with 'working' on the laptop, TV, homework or start warped thinking like "I'm an undergrad, my time is better spent doing stuff like readings" How warped my thinking can be at times, how elitist indeed. Sometimes as i get down to household chores like dish-washing, sweeping, vacuuming, tidying the house i go at it with a stinky attitude, sulking and just going through the motion. My dad just washes the dishes nonchalantly, like its the most natural thing to do after working 2 jobs.

My dad loves my mum. That's why he helps to wash the dishes. When he's too tired at night, he gets up early to wash the dishes, like 5 plus in the morning, when I have yet to enter Rapid Eye Movement phase of my sleep i guess. My mum is bushed after sewing clothes almost every day for long stretches at home, and having to do household duties on top of that. My dad helps with the dishes just to ease off that load from my mum.

My dad does more than that. He sweeps and mops the floor whether it's clean or not. Sometimes we suspect he is either a clean freak or has a bad memory. But we know he has neither. My dad just deliberately loves my mum and this family, all this perhaps without a single hug or "I love you". He will probably make good friends with feminists also, though i doubt he is familiar with the movement and its ideals. He just lives it out. My dad never took a single class of sociology, man he never even finished primary school, but he sure knows a little about sharing the domestic workload. And i'm learning from him.

I'm learning to volunteer for household duties with the right attitude, of loving my family. Salvation cannot simply take place in my life outside my home. Salvation bubbles to life wherever i go, and importantly it must come to fruition at home. I'm learning how to be a loving dad and husband from my dad, never knew that was possible. I'm learning about deliberate love after being impacted at Calvary, and seeing it in daily action at home.

When I was young i tried to get paid for household chores and good grades, but my family could never afford such luxuries or nonsense. I think in my parents' eyes it was more of the latter, they never approved of using money as an incentive for me to perform. I thank them for that.

Now i simply walk in the humble footsteps of a carpenter and learn how to love my family deliberately. Whether it's washing the dishes, preparing a meal, sweeping the floor or teaching me mum IT skills, Lord help me.