Mom told me that the night I got married she cried all night. He eldest left home never to return. Dad said mom cried for several days. I think dad was glad I was gone. I never understood why mom cried all night until I had children.
Fast forward a few years and I realized why momma cried. Taking our seventeen-year-old daughter away to college to play volleyball was one of the hardest days of my life. I knew when she left that my little girl would never come back home to stay.
I was proud that she received a scholarship to play
volleyball. She had prepared and trained
since the eighth grade to play and earn a scholarship. She had an offer from Washington State, which
won the National Champion in girls’ volleyball the previous year. Other offers came from Notre Dame,
As a dad, I tried to instill Christian principles and ethics that would enable my children to make wise decisions. I had faith that all my children would make wise decisions in everything they encountered.
All three of my children have good ethics, which is something that is missing from the moral fabric of society today. They have not been perfect, even though I wanted them to be. All three have thanked me for teaching them how to work and live.
Not many years ago, Aaron, the baby son, thanked me for teaching
and enabling him to perform many tasks.
He apologized that he lived in
He thought for a long time that he would never find a good vocation or a good wife. Having found both, he left home. It was hard to lose my sidekick who had been with me since he was seven. He is ten years younger than my daughter is, so her moving to college was my segue into taking care of Aaron.
I told Aaron that from the moment of his birth I began to teach him how to become a man. I instilled him with principles and skills to leave home, discover a vocation, find a bride, and raise Christian children in a world that would constantly grow spiritually darker and would need men and women to share the love of Christ.
Having faith that I did a decent job, allowed me to release my children to find their own way, make their own decisions, and pass their knowledge to my grandchildren and others along their way.
Dr. Scott Bullard, Judson College in Marion reminded me at a
Monthly Minister’s Conference that sometimes we overlook some intriguing
moments in the Bible. One such moment we
find in here: And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of
Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their
nets. And straightway he called them:
and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and
went after him (Mark
Scott called our attention to the James and John leaving a very lucrative vocation to follow a little-known carpenter. Scott called it “Dropping Your Net.”
The sons of Zebedee became the “Sons of Thunder.” In a few moments in time, James would be killed for following a carpenter and John would spend his last days in exile. The probing question is, “What did Zebedee feel when his two sons left the family business?” I think he probably had hurt, a sick feeling, deep in his soul.
Had James and John remained fishermen, their influence would have gone no further than filling some stomachs and some wallets. But, since they dropped their nets and did as the carpenter instructed, they became part of God’s Word to us. Because of John’s experience with the family business, he could be in the inner courts during Jesus’ trial and left us the first-hand account of what happened. His time on the Isle of Patmos gave us the Book of Revelation
For each mom and dad that will face the departure of that son or daughter, you are not alone. One day that son or daughter will thank you for teaching them how to live. I know I thanked my mom and dad.
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