We continue this series through the month of June in honor of Father’s Day, as Elisabeth remembers her father in this powerful and poignant recollection.
My father’s life as we witnessed it was more eloquent than anything he ever said. As an adult I have become aware of his simplicity, humility, and integrity, as well as of many other qualities of which a child would take no notice. We could not help noticing that he prayed, although we were not impressed, taking it for granted that that was what fathers did. He took as his pattern that of his Master, who prayed, “For their sake I consecrate myself, that they too may be consecrated by the truth” (John 17:19 NEB, italics mine). The responsibility of fatherhood was heavy upon him—how could he fulfill it unless he consecrated himself?— and it was too heavy to bear alone. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me,” said Jesus (Matt 11:29 AV, italics mine). My father tried to do just that. Like his Master he “rose a great while before day.” He went downstairs in his robe (called a “wrapper” in those days) to kneel in prayer and study his Bible before breakfast. The difference it made to us to know that we had been thus prayed for every morning before we were awake was unperceived then, and only God can assess the long-term effects of those prayers throughout the rest of our lives.
**Excerpt originally published in The Shaping of a Christian Family p. 55