My Hero

My Hero
I want to write about my hero. My dad is 83 years old and I'm crazy about him. He was the first man to sit and talk with me in the wee hours of the night, the first man to tell me how beautiful I was, and the first man to bring me hand picked flowers. When I was very young, he tailored his precious hedge around our yard and left a gap so that me and my friend could always slip through and he made sure to keep the stray branches cut from my "hiding spot" in the tree so I would have a perfect place to sit. As a teenager, he always had an extra $5 to hand me on the weekend and gave up the keys to the car without flinching. He grew a mustache and parted his hair in the middle to look more "hip" in the 70's and listened to the top 40 on his car radio to help stay in touch with my brother and me. My dad is funny and fun. He is progressive and open to new ideas. A couple of years ago he got a computer and right now he is taking a college level course on missions so he can learn more about Lacey's heart beat. On Sunday, he gave his testimony for tithing. It was so beautiful and inspiring. He loves my Jesus and he taught me to love Him, too. Our church has purchased about fifteen acres of land to which we plan to move as the Lord leads. He has been so excited and working on the fund raising committee diligently. Even though many of our senior adults are opposed to this effort, he has stood firmly in his support of it. In an effort to utilize the land as it is now, our youth have been working on a prayer garden. He has been with them every step of the way, using his God given talent of gardening. I will forever have a mental picture of him with a shovel in hand, digging into the chat and moving it to polish off the look of a stepping stone at the entry. It was quite a picture to see him doing this with a backdrop of teenagers raking and planting. He has since then carried his sprinkler and hose out and spent three hours watering and tenderly caring for the prayer garden to insure the plants survive and it is a showy success for our Easter morning sunrise service. How blessed I am, just to have known him and called him dad.