A Father's Day Tribute

My post this week is dedicated to fathers - our Heavenly Father, of course and our earthly fathers.  I was blessed to have THREE fathers – my birth father, my stepfather and my father-in-law. 

My stepfather, Bill Tuttle, adopted me when I was about 10 years old.  He had recently married my mother.  I honor him today because of the sacrifice he made to raise us, not his “own” physically, but adopted into His family.  He adopted us, like Christ adopted us, to be a part of him – his family.

For He chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.  In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons (daughters) through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.  Ephesians 1

Dad wasn’t a “church-goer” at all.   In fact, the only time Dad ever went to church was when one of us girls were married, or had our children baptized or confirmed.   He once told me that he loved listening to the Christian music I had recorded and that was his “church”.   He was a “giver” though.  And he loved . . . oh, how he loved my mom.  In loving her, he loved us.  I always felt totally loved by Dad Tuttle.  On his deathbed, he wrote the words,

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  II Timothy 4

Yes, Dad the prize is yours.  Heaven.  Thank you for your commitment to my mother and your love and acceptance of me and my sisters.

With the recent death of my father-in-law, Bob Heyer, this Father’s Day has a two-fold blessing.  Two-fold because we miss him, of course, but know that he is in the presence of His Savior.  My father-in-law was most certainly a man of God.  He was a servant through and through.  That was not only clear to his family, but to everyone, including the thousands of students whose lives he touched as a teacher in the Mounds View School District.

On the day he died, my devotion had a wonderful quote that I believe summed up who Dad was.  James Freeman Clarke wrote:

Each soul has its own faculty; it can help in some way to make the world more cheerful and more beautiful.  This is what makes life worth living.  If we are living only for ourselves, our own amusement, luxury, advancement, life is not worth living.  But if we are living as co-workers with Christ, as fellow-helpers with God, as part of the noble army of martyrs who bear witness to the truth in all time, then our lives are full of interest.  This gives sweetness and strength to all our days.

He never lived for himself – he lived for his Lord.  As a co-worker with
Christ, his legacy of faith will live on in his children, his grandchildren, and his great grandchildren.  From everlasting to everlasting – generation to generation as Psalm 103 says:

But from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children’s children, with those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts.

Last, but not least, is my father.  He has instilled in me faith, a legacy of faith - passed down from his ancestors.  He is a hard-working, man of few words (not me!), who learned lessons the hard way (I do too!).  Never shy about his faith, he told me as a young adult the reason he went to church.  His testimony left an unforgettable impression on my heart.

His humbleness has touched me in many ways.  I am both humbled and proud to be his daughter and  pray that his legacy will live on in my children and grandchildren, as well.  His life verse:

Choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.  Joshua 24:15

What legacy are you leaving?  What will your family, your loved ones, remember of you?  Are you a co-worker of Christ’s – faithful to the end? 

May it be so, by the grace of God.