My earliest memories are of my father.

Three come to mind without prompting. All of them occurred in a little white house just up the hill from the church where he was pastor. We lived in that house when I was three years old.
I recently returned there, not to visit anyone but just to look at it, from the street. Funny how everything seems so big when you are little. Even my father seemed big in those days although I know he was only 5’11.
Those memories I began to tell you about,

of me getting up very early in the morning when the sky outside was still dark and the house was very quiet. I don’t know where I was headed but I do know I passed the living room. There he was, Bible in his lap, glasses in his hand, eyes closed. I didn’t wonder, even then, why he was up so early. I knew he was praying. There were many times after that one, when I happened upon him, in that same position and I knew each time, what he was doing.

The next memory and I have a faded picture to prove it, was of me in a little pink homemade coat, in his arms, in the church sanctuary.

The next memory is a time in that same living room. My siblings must have been at school because it was just the three of us. Dad, mom and me. We were having devotions. Let me explain what the House Family devotion time looked like. It was usually called “reading”. “Come to the living room. We’re going to read” was the commonly heard instruction. As the years went by I all too often rolled my eyes and wished I was someplace else. “Reading” meant we would read some verses from dad’s Bible. Sometimes He passed it to one of his children or his wife and we would get to read. That was my favorite. I loved to read. Not sure I cared about WHAT I was reading, but since God’s Word is living and powerful, it began to be imbedded in my heart. Following the reading we all knelt down beside the couch to pray. Sometimes only dad would pray and other times we would go around the room and each take a turn, ending with dad’s ‘closing’ prayer.
So, on this particular morning we had finished the reading part of reading and had moved on to the praying part. My memory has me getting up off my knees because I was finding the prayer time rather boring. I walked into the hall and found something to look at. I don’t recall what happened after that so I know it was not huge. I imagine there was a stern talk about how we do not leave a prayer time to find something more exciting to do.

My father was a passionate man and the object of most of his passion was God. He committed his life to sharing God’s love with everyone who would listen. He was not always patient, had a tendency to worry and was at times fearful. We had our share of conflict he and I and we did not always see eye to eye, but I knew He loved me and more importantly, I knew He loved His Heavenly Father. Despite His human inadequacies, His love for God had a huge affect on me. It impacted my life attitudes. His fears and the issues he dealt with drove him to the cross. He wanted to honor the one who had created him, lived within him. He was a model of desiring to hear from God, of listening closely. Dad’s life here is over and He is worshiping God in His forever home.
Memories are powerful. Sometimes they are happy and sometimes sad. But the key to peace and finding joy is to recognize God’s power and His unconditional love.
In the same way that Nano’s name came into being, my dad’s ‘grandpa’ name became papa when my oldest niece struggled to say grandpa.
He was a good papa, to his children and to his grandchildren. He was a man determined to seek after God. He stayed the course and ultimately arrived at the finish line where he no doubt heard a resounding,
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Having Ches House for my father does not define me but he undoubtedly played a huge roll in who I am today. For this reason, when people ask me to tell them about me I begin with Papa and Nano. After all, it’s good to start at the very beginning.