WARNING PREACHY
(If he would have lived, my dad would have celebrated his 68th birthday yesterday. I write this because I was thinking of him.)
I know that I will be the subject of my children’s counseling sessions one day, it’s inevitable: children just blame their parents for everything. We kids always blame our parents for crap
they do/did while raising us. Now that
I am a dad, I am OK with that. I fully expect
that my kids will not agree with my decisions when I tell them “No” and it will
likely scar their poor little psyches for the rest of their lives.
I’m being funny of course, but the reality is that my kids
will legitimately recognize my personal flaws, faults, inconsistencies, and
gross injustices. They are going to see
that I am not always right in my decisions as a parent and they are going to
recognize that I’m really just making most of this parenting stuff up,
off-the-cuff, as I am confronted with it.
Just like I suspect my dad did.
I was considering the different emotions when I
think back on my dad. One of the many is that I always felt safe.
I always believed that our home was safe. I cannot imagine that if anyone invaded our
home that he would not have given his life-blood protecting his family. I believe in his honor and devotion in
protecting me from such dangers and this is a big deal for me as I feel honored
when I consider that he would have died for me had the situation arose. Then it dawned on me, how the gospel of Jesus
makes me feel this same sense of honor.
For Jesus shed his blood that I could be freed from the sin of
Adam.
Thankfully my dad never had to physically lay his life
down for me. However, if he ever had, I
cannot imagine that I would have ever forgotten it. In fact, I would consider it the greatest of
insults to his memory to not always remember his sacrifice.
I guess maybe that is why I go to church and seek to know Jesus more and
more. Not because I am “religious” but
because I want to honor and remember the savior who shed his life-blood for me.
Happy birthday dad, thank you for still teaching me about life.
No comments:
Post a Comment