I’ve been thinking a lot about my father lately.  It’s hard to believe that it has been nearly three years  since his passing.  Life for me has been a roller coaster since November of 2007.  I’ve experienced some pretty dark days, but I’ve also accomplished some rather amazing things too.  And while the best is yet to come, I wish that he were here to share in this with me.

 
It’s funny what you remember from your childhood.  I will see or do something simple and it brings a flood of memories back into my mind.  One of these simple things is the nozzle I have on my garden hose.  In this day of advanced technology for everything, including nozzles, mine is a basic Craftsman brass nozzle that you spin to achieve either a spray or a stream.  It’s what dad always had and I’ll never buy anything else for one simple reason.  For years, I watched my father water the plants in our yard in the early evening.  He’d sit on a chair, wearing a white t shirt, blue jeans and work boots and use the hose to thoroughly water his roses, plants, and shrubs.  He’d sit there in silence.  He barely moved.  But there he’d stay, alone with his thoughts (and the plants).

 
For as long as I have owned my house, I too have spent many summer evenings sitting outside in a chair watering my plants just as my father did.  It makes me feel good to know that I share something with him – even something as insignificant as a method of watering plants.  It’s a connection with my father that I don’t find in any other place and in those moments I will often times find myself sharing the events of my life with him.

 
It shouldn’t surprise us that boys want to grow up to emulate the good things they see in their fathers.  I’m sure there’s a psychological reason behind it, but there is clearly a spiritual one as well.  God made us in His image.  We learn everything we know about life, about love, about compassion, and about joy from seeing it in Him.  The good we see in our earthly fathers is perfected in our Heavenly Father.  I find that true of my own dad and my Heavenly Dad in the words of James 1:17.

 
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

 
Dependable, consistent, and loving: Thank you Father, and thank you dad.