Priceless Gifts from My Father
What gift did you receive from your father? I am not talking about material things; I am talking about things that you can’t price. Dating back to the earliest I can remember, which was probably around 1983, my father spent time with me. Not just quality time, but quantity. I remember playing ball in the backyard for hours on end. I remember the BB gun he gave me one year for my birthday. However, it wasn’t the BB gun that I remember so well, it was the hour spent shooting it together in the house. You wonder how we shot it in the house. Dad came up with the idea of getting a big cardboard box and stuffing it with newspaper as tight as we could get it. Then we would sit on the couch in his office and shoot over the armrest--don’t worry we were no more than eight feet away from the target. What a good rainy day memory.
There were many years of soccer games and Dad never missed one. I can still hear him yelling, “Come on, Will, turn it on”. There were the vacations to the beach where we would play hide and seek with my cousins in the sand dunes and go on crab hunting adventures at night along the beach.
The time over the years spent with Dad was truly priceless, but there are other things that he did that stand out in my mind even more. There were times he would spend out on the front porch with a troubled neighbor who would often come by needing money. Dad would sit out there and share the Good News of Jesus Christ and send him home with groceries for his family. I distinctly remember Dad kissing and flirting with Mom through the years. You know the kind of things that made you roll your eyes and make gagging noises. I never doubted Dad’s love for Mom for a minute. Dad has always spent the first hour of every day in God’s word and in prayer for his family and friends. I believe it was those priceless, silent things that impact me most today as I try to father my children. I am thankful to God for my earthly father that has lived in such a way that I now know God. —Will Tucker