My Father …

Dad and Mom, 1938

… had many jobs.  He made a list one time of jobs he had and told why he no longer had them – most simply ceased to exist, such as delivering blocks of ice for ice boxes or being the fireman on coal burning steam engines for the railroad. He had lots of stories, and I’ve been able to get a few of them written down.  Many are on cassette tapes and I’m looking for a reasonably priced (according to my budget, not their value) place to digitize them so my kids and grandkids could hear him.

To my knowledge, those tapes contain family stories and not his Christian witness.  His life was a witness, though. He attend a Methodist church as a child, but was over 40 when he accepted Jesus as his savior and was baptized at Immanuel Baptist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1953.  His membership remained there until 1999 when he moved it to First Baptist Church of Cottondale. He was a strong supporter of being a member of a local congregation.

My father was in a car wreck when he was fourteen and sustained what we now call traumatic brain injury. He was unconscious for weeks. When he woke up, the lady sitting next to him asked him questions. Finally, he asked her, “Do I know you?” and his mother began to cry. Fortunately, most of his memory returned.

Even with short term memory loss, he graduated as valedictorian, studying each morning as he drove a school bus his senior year. He maintained a check list of what he was supposed to do each day, yet he never forgot his Lord or his favorite verses from the Bible. First was:

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2 KJV)

Most of his life Dad did roofing on homes, some were very large, luxurious mansions and would never be within his budget. There never was envy for he knew he would have a mansion of his own. Our Lord told us so.

He also shared this verse with us:

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. (John 14:28 KJV)

Even with this verse in his heart, he grieved when my mother died.  She spent the last twenty-five years of her life with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Dad as her constant care giver. When she passed away, he was lost for a while, but took the comfort Christ offered.

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. (John 14:18 KJV)

The year after Mom passed away, he attended his school reunion and was asked to say grace before their meal.  As he bowed his head and began the prayer, a movement caught his eye. Bare footed, not touching the floor, dressed all in white but with the red hair of her youth, Mom stood before him, healed and smiling.

He only spoke of this a couple of times.  The vision, and the memory was for him.

Can anyone suggested a better comfort?