I had meant to post this in time for Father’s Day in honor of my Father. He passed away February 5, 2012, but what I said at his funeral is still appropriate today. Here is my message I gave at his funeral. Hopefully, it will inspire fathers to be Men….
I told my Mother and Father that I wanted to speak today. I want you to get to know my Dad the way I know him. I say this, because I pray that there can be more Fathers like my Dad, that you can be inspired by his life, and learn from his example.
MY DAD WAS A REAL MAN.
His mission on this earth was to make sure that we become the same.
He was an outdoorsman.
Before I was old enough to carry a gun, he took me dove hunting. I sat there in the field with him, and he would talk to me about how to handle a gun, how to fire a gun, and how to lead the bird to make the kill. He then had me go and collect the bird, and showed me how to clean it afterward so that Mother could cook it for supper that evening. We squirrel hunted together, deer hunted, boar hunted, and duck hunted. He also taught me how to fish, how to camp, and how to water ski. He sent me to swimming lessons at the YMCA. I kicked and dog paddled, but the day I learned how to swim was when we were in the boat, and he told me to jump off the boat and swim to the sand bar. I dog paddled a little, and stroked here and there. Dad, watched and hollered out to me, “kick” “swim”, and I made it to the sand bar.
He was an independent man
He taught me to ride a bike in much the same way as he taught me to swim. He put me on the bike, and gave me a push down the hill, and I kept it up all the way down the hill, falling only when I tried to turn around, right in the middle of a mud puddle. I didn’t think my mother would ever stop fussing at him, because I was so muddy. In this day of helmets and knee pads, he was teaching me to be independent and strong. He taught me that it was up to me to make it happen.
He was a mechanical genius
He could fix almost anything. He could figure out how a machine was made, and how it worked, and then make it work. I can’t tell you the number of times when things were pronounced dead, and made it come alive. I was 14 at the time, and he bought this old 50 something slant 6, three speed on the column Plymouth that was dead. Pulled it to my grandmother’s house, and he said to me, “Come on, boy, I am going to teach you how to fix a car”. We rebuilt that engine right there in the driveway of my grandmother’s house. After the last bolt and nut tightened, we poured some gas in the carburetor, then he had me turn on the key, and step on the starter. That car spit and sputtered, and then began fire. He grabbed the carburetor linkage, worked the choke valve by hand, giving it just enough air, and that old, dead car roared to life. He grabbed his screwdriver, and twisted on the jets on that carb, grabbed the distributor and timed it by ear, and that car ran smooth. Then he closed the hood, and said, “Come on boy, I am going to teach you how to drive.” He loaded my brother up in the back seat, and we went up onto Interstate 20 that was under construction at the time, and worked with me on how to slip a clutch and drive that massive old beast of a car. No power steering, no hydraulic clutches like today. Everything mechanical, heavy, hard, and full of slack. My brother will tell you how afraid he was that day. It was legitimate fear. But I can smell that old car right now.
He was a kind person
There was never a person he would not help. Whether it be around the house, or around the shop, or around the neighborhood, he always had a helping hand to lend. As I was picking up his things, underneath his Bible was a parts sheet for a chain saw that he was fixing. It wasn’t his, but it was something he wanted to do for my brother.
He was a family man
My dad was a real man. He loved his boys, he loved my mother, he loved his daughter-in-laws, and he loved his grandchildren and his great grandchildren. Real men, love their families.
But there was one thing lacking in my dad’s life.
He was not a Christian. Mother made sure we were in church every Sunday. Every Sunday we would ask my dad if he would go to church with us, and he would always say “No.” He then would add, “I’ll have the boat ready when you get home.” And he did. We would fix some sandwiches, throw them into the cooler and spend the day at the reservoir. When I told him about the call on my life, and how I was not going to go to college to become an architect, but, instead, I was going to go into the ministry, he told me that I was throwing my money away, and he would have nothing to do with it. I don’t think he really believed that I would do it. But then, when I went to seminary in Louisville, he accepted it a little more. As the years past, he began to go to church here and there. It was when we accepted our mission post in Reno, when the Holy Spirit began bearing down on his life. He and mother traveled with us in the moving truck as we made the 5-day trip across country to Reno. We unloaded the truck into the townhouse that we rented, and then he attended church with us, on our first service there. That day, November 1, 1987, my dad became complete. He gave his life to Jesus Christ that day. My dad became a Christian at 51 years old.
My dad was a Christian man
In the years that followed, he served on mission teams, sang and played guitar in the senior adult choir, and was ordained as a deacon. He truly was an ordained man, as I saw him become a minister in his own right. It is appropriate that he entered the gates of heaven on the Lord’s day. He loved Jesus, his Lord. Here are a quick couple of things my dad wants you to know.
- Men, love your family.
- It is never too late to give your life to Jesus Christ.
- Show the love of Christ to those around you.