MY DAD

Today we celebrate my youngest daughter's birthday, though it was actually yesterday. Today is really my father's birthday--born in 1903. When Laurel was born, it was almost like God gave us her to replace or to comfort us for the loss of my dad that we would have about three years later.

My dad grew up, raised by his grandfather, in a small town. He walked to school and went to a one room school, several miles from where he lived.

He played basketball in high school--back in the days when after each basket, the ball went back to center court for a jump ball. He said that if you had a good center to jump, you got most of those jump balls.

He worked cutting bread dough for Wonder Bread in Indiana. He sent money back to his grandfather, helping them have money to live on. He worked at an oil refinery in Minneapolis. He sold candy when there was shortage of sugar, therefore a shortage of candy. He worked as a foreman, building LST (landing vehicles for tanks, etc.) during WWII in Seneca, IL. The last years of his working life, he worked all over southern Illinois as a boilermaker, helping build power plants, oil refineries and such.

People in the town he grew up in, and the town he settled back in with his five kids (and later one more--me), respected and liked the quiet, gentle man he was. He was well-liked by boilermakers with whom he worked. (I got to work one summer with some of those men, and several told me how much they liked my dad.) He did his best to support his family through depression times, unemployment times, and good times.

I loved my dad. And he wasn't "father" to me--he was "dad," with all the close, warm feeling that the word to me implies.

There is a praise chorus that I like that goes like this: "Abba, Father, My defender, You are holy, I surrender, In my weakness you protect me, When my heart strays you correct me. Abba, Father, I love you daddy."

My dad was many of those things to me--close, defender, an example of holiness (as best I could see), one who followed God, one who protected me, and one who corrected me. And I loved him for all of that and more.

But today, though I miss my daddy, I still have an Abba, Father that this song was written about. He is certainly One that goes beyond all the love, protection, correction and holiness that my earthly father could provide. He is the One who gave me the godly father that I had on earth. And I am eternally thankful, that even though I do not have my physical dad, I have Him always here with me to guide me, protect me, give me wisdom and strength to live out my life here on this earth.

Thanks today to Cecil, my earthly dad. You are cherished and loved, even these many years after your passing from this earth. But thanks mostly to God, my Abba Father, with whom my earthly father now dwells. One who is always available and very near to each of us. He said, "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." I love You, Abba, Father!