Daddy and the Checkered Flag
It’s crazy how much influence our dads have on us. If they’re involved in our lives, they shape us at the core. If they’re not, their absence shapes us at the core. No one escapes the power and influence of their earthly father. Mine was more absent than involved so when I grew up and realized it, I was hurt. And mad. After I came to faith in Christ and realized the ‘Father-son’ relationship God wanted with me, I got peace by replacing my earthly father with my Heavenly Father. It freed me from my dad’s expectations and freed him from his regrets. I forgave him. Never told him…he wouldn’t have understood and didn’t need to. Too late for him to change and the season when it would have mattered was long gone. I started to see him as a nice old man who’d done the best he knew how. He started to see me as a nice young man who took the time to talk to him. We became friends. I loved and served him as a choice, not an obligation. Those were sweet years. Then he died.
Paul, in Ephesians 6:2-3…
“Honor your father and mother”–which is the first commandment with a promise– “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
I underlined you because it may not be obvious that ‘honoring’ your father and mother benefits you.
I chose to invest time with my dad during his last years. It was hard, because he lived three hours away. It was a lot of ‘one way street’, because he didn’t know how to love me back. The same deficits that kept him from being involved in my life when I was young were still there when he got old …maybe worse. But choosing to love on him, hang out and take care of him was one of the best decisions I ever made.
I didn’t realize how much longer I’d live without my earthly dad. For me, it’s been 20 years …twenty years since the call came, the funeral happened, the necessities attended to. As we climbed in the car for the three-hour drive home, I told my wife “I feel like sticking a checkered flag out the window…..like the winner of a NASCAR race, ‘cause I did good. I did good by him. Even if he didn’t do good by me, I did good by him.”
I’m also amazed at how often my mind goes to the category of “Dad”. And how good it feels for the next thought to be “You did good”. To be guilt-free. To know I ‘honored my father’, even with his wrongs and failures toward me. If you were blessed with an awesome dad who got it right, how much joy to love and serve him, not just out of obedience but out of gratitude.
Do well by your dad while you can, so “it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
Question: Are you holding your dad’s performance against him? Will you choose to forgive and start to “honor” him this Christmas? Tell us here.
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Responses (2)
I love this story.
Oh can I relate to this, Regi! Sounds like my Dad was your Dad’s twin brother! 🙂
The difference in our stories is that in his last years, I did not serve my Dad as a choice, I did it because I felt I was obligated to, and I very much regret that now. I served him, and I served him well, the last few years of his life. He was very needy, having a terminal illness that dragged on for many years. He was only about 15 minutes away, so the “obligation” was something I felt strongly. But at the same time, I felt resentment about serving him, and I could never get over that feeling. Looking back, four years later, I have some much better ideas of how I could have gotten over it now (and thus made our time together so much nicer for both of us!) but it’s too late now.
Hopefully I’ll do better next time I’m in a situation like that. 🙁
Alan Salls