A Friend's Father

I was at the funeral of a friend's father yesterday. Father's are so influential. They affect us so deeply and in so many way - and in ways that we don't realize until a crisis situation or until it's too late. It was interesting to hear of all the things this father went through - terrible things really - as he grew up. The pressures of life on a farm, the narrow religious views, the horrors of war and disease. We of this generation, with media scrutiny and information access and medical breakthrough and broad education, don't realize the difficulty of the times our parents and grandparents experienced. Children worked on the farm (summer vacations were work time) and school work was often sacrificed for the more pressing needs of harvest time or spring planting. Men were supposed to be men, tough and unfeeling, and raised their sons that way.

And yet in the middle of the difficulties, grace abounds. Fathers love their sons - not always in the ways their sons want to be loved - but loved more than they could ever know. That was my friend's experience and he was able to celebrate a generous hard working man who brought four children into the world - each successful in their own way, each following Jesus and each one parents of their own children now. Thanks for letting me be a part of this story.