Happy Father’s Day Daddy!

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Dear Daddy,

Happy Father’s Day! I just wanna say “thank you” for everything you did to give me the best childhood one could dream of! I love you so much and am so grateful for all the time you and momma invested in each of us. You made sacrifices to be able to do the things like these verses in Deuteronomy say, to teach us about the Bible and Jesus throughout the day and in the evenings as we went about life. You tried to make everything fun! Here’s just a sample of things that come to mind when I think back to my childhood with my Daddy (a.k.a. “Pops”!)

Daddy, some of my earliest memories are from our nightly Bible times most every evening. We loved to listen to you read the bible and explain it to us in story form….even though sometimes we fell asleep toward the end! 🙂 We all loved it!

I remember that we kids would sometimes get in trouble for leaving your tools out in the rain, or for digging holes in the yard with the back claws of your hammers. You decided to designate a “dirt pile” where we could dig as much as we wanted. You led by example when you’d ask us to help pick up trash in the yard. You also let us know that if we were going to keep getting popsicles as treats we couldn’t throw our wrappers in the yard. And there were periods where we didn’t get to have them after that! That consistency was good though ‘cause it taught us pretty quickly that we not only wanted to make sure we didn’t throw our wrappers down, but also to remind our brother or sister not to either!

I remember swim lessons at Grandma Bennett’s when you tried to help me face my fears of the diving board and “deep end” by jumping off with me. lol Not sure that worked so well since I ended up thinking I was for sure gonna drown! 😉 I’ve told Derick about the experience though and maybe since he’s a great swimmer he’ll be able to continue the coaching. lol

You made time together as a family super fun. I loved the family bike rides (we made a super long line on the road) and camping in the front yard or out at the new home site. I remember you had a special cabinet on road trips where you kept oatmeal cream pies! You’d share them with us, but we couldn’t eat nearly many as you without feeling sick. lol

Grocery shopping with you was always fun since you’d end up getting junk food snacks. 😉 Speaking of food, when you were State Rep. we loved going with you to the state capitol for our weekly turn. And we knew that even though we may have to sit through a boring committee meeting, we’d get to eat out and maybe even get some yummy snacks (tootsie rolls, popcorn and ice cream sandwiches!) from the other Representatives.

You showed us what Jesus meant when he said to take care of the fatherless and the widows. You’d give when we didn’t have a lot of extra in the bank. And you’d be sure to include our friends who didn’t have fathers on the father/son or father/daughter campouts.

When you were running the car lot we’d get to go with you for the day and knew that if you and Grandpa went next door to get a Mt. Dew from the convenience store you’d get one for us too! I remember riding with you in the tow truck too and wondering how you could drive a stick shift, talk on the phone and keep your cup of sweet tea (without a lid on) from spilling! When you were done with your drink I’d help eat the ice since I didn’t care for tea.

You taught us many life skills from a young age. I remember going to the hardware store and us kids being so excited when we found a new “do it yourself” home improvement video on the rack. I think because we didn’t watch a lot of television and liked working on projects with you it made even the simplest things fun. We picked up on a few things (e.g. plumbing, roofing, tiling, etc.) that would benefit us later when helping build the family home.

One of the many character traits you purposed to exemplify to us from the Bible was how “a soft answer turns away anger.”  As a teenage girl, I realized this quality was something I also wanted in my future husband.

When you introduced Derick to me long-distance and suggested we get to know each other, it gave me confidence to know you approved from the start and to know you cared enough to look out for me in that way. The trip we took together to Nepal to meet Derick was such a special time and I was SO grateful to have you there with me! You were my counselor, photographer, bodyguard, and so much more! I will cherish those memories forever!

On our wedding day, I remember you were in tears just before you walked me down the isle. I was your first daughter to have to give away and I know it was tough for you. I was so excited and so grateful to God for such a Godly daddy who raised me to love Jesus, serve others and who protected me and helped guide me till the day he gave me away to my sweet hubby, Derick! I’m so grateful you’re still my daddy and a wonderful grandpa to Israel! I love you so much Daddy & can’t wait to see you before too long! XOXOXO