I didn't grow up with a godly father. He was angry and bitter at God for allowing the fatal accident of his son in a horrible farm accident and also the death of my sister soon after she was born. Words were never spoken by him in my presence, but my mother often tried to explain to me all the emotional trauma that he oftentimes experienced mainly through nightmares. Many, many nights mom and I would hold him, rocking him in our arms, crying with him, trying to comfort him after these violent interruptions of sleep. But comfort really never came for him. The mental suffering of this haunted man was unimaginable.
Dad never went to church except for funerals. He wasn't about to give God the satisfaction of thinking He would ever be forgiven for what dad believed God had taken from him. But mom and I were in church every Sunday. If there was any talk about not attending church my dad nixed that immediately. He wasn't going, but he saw to it that we went.
However, my dad was the type of man in whose lap I was always welcome. Even as a teen, I could climb up in my daddy's lap, and he would cuddle and love me profusely. He died when I was 18, and for 19 yrs I had no lap to crawl into. When I came to Christ at age 37, I realized the love of my Creator/Father. My earthly dad had taught me that I would be welcome to climb up into my heavenly Father's grasp and bask in His loving arms.
Daddy wasn't perfect, but I knew his never-ending love for me and finally recognized that love in my eternal Father.
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