My dad is the greatest man I’ve ever met. He showed me how to be a good husband and father. He showed me how to follow Christ and give Him my all, to love people unconditionally, to value them as God does, and to live what you say you believe. I never saw him sin. I never heard him speak evil of another person. He never raised his hand, or his voice, in anger. He was the same man at home and at work that he was at Church. He didn’t say much, but he was unafraid to lead by example. I will forever remember walking by his bedroom every night and seeing him kneeling beside his bed, praying – for my mom, for me and my brothers, for his unsaved brothers, for our community and our church, for our family and friends – and getting up early every morning to read his Bible and spend time with his Savior before starting the grind. Of course he wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes, made errors in judgement from time to time, and was maybe more laid back at times than he should have been. But dad had his priorities in the right place, and maintained a perspective on life that was mindful of eternity.

My dad is the greatest man I’ve ever met, but unless you lived on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley and attended Kearns/ Valley Assembly of God, or worked at Simpson Steel Fabricators, you’ve probably never heard of Tom Stanton.

If I turn out to be half the man he was, I will have done great things in this life.