Daddy is Special

After my parents died in a truck accident when I was 13 in 1959 there was a time in limbo while we didn't know what would happen to my brother, sister and me.  We ended up by the grace of God and the good hearts of my Aunt and Uncle Ruth and Earl Redlin to live the rest of our childhood in peace and safety.

 

For that I am more thankful than you can imagine.  Since this is fathers day I will identify with something I heard in a sermon today.

 

Fathers:

• Provide for their Families
• Protect their Families
• Love their Families
• Model a Relationship with God before their Families

 

Earl did all those things.  I love him.  I love him as a father.

 

I just was never able to call him "Daddy" or "Dad".  Not that he didn't deserve it.  He did.  The honor due him was apt. 

 

I felt somewhat guilty about the whole idea.  My brother and sister were able to call him Dad or Daddy without any hang-ups.  I suspect it had much to do with the fact that I was 13, my brother 7 and sister was 2.  So we didn't adapt the same.

 

Then today I was talking with Esther Helland, Aaron's wife about the whole thing regarding fathers day and daddy.   She grew up on the mission field in the Amazon of Brazil.  Her dad was a missionary.  She lived on a boat and they traveled up and down the river to different villages bringing the message of Jesus.  That was her childhood.  When she was about 13 her daddy was killed in an airplane crash.  A few years later he mom married her dad's brother.  Her uncle became her father.

 

But she could never call him daddy.  She said, daddy is a pretty special name and it's reserved for only one.  I know exactly what she meant and that helped me. 

 

So, to my dear Uncle Earl, I love you, I appreciate you, I will never forget what you did in sacrifice.  You were always a father to me.  Happy fathers day. 

 

Daddy is gone from here but Daddy in heaven still is.