By Rick
Blumenberg / @rickblumenberg
It was a warm summer
night on our family farm in Southeast Missouri. I was in my middle teens and
our home was small with no place to be alone. It was late in the evening, about
ten, and before I went to bed I went outside into the moonlight. It was quiet
except for the croaking of the frogs, the chirping of the crickets and an
occasional hoot of an owl. In the distance I could hear the sound of a foghorn
from a riverboat pushing barges down the Mississippi River just a few miles
away.
I thought I was alone, but instead, I happened upon my father as he knelt
in prayer beside an old wash kettle that lay upside down there among the
clutter of the back yard.
I have many pictures
of Dad in my mind, working on the farm as he drove the tractor, milked the cow,
or fed the pigs. Often he could be seen walking along the edge of a field with
hoe in hand as he chopped down the many weeds or clumps of Johnson grass that
had somehow escaped the plow. I can also see him leading singing, or Wednesday
night Bible study at Pulltight Church, or preaching to a small congregation
from the Word at the Mounds congregation.
They are pleasant
pictures because he was a good father. But the best picture of all and the one
that most influences my own life is the memory of seeing him talking to our
heavenly Father that night in the moonlight.
He was a great man
of prayer with a gift of evangelism. His example and heritage of faith lives on
in the lives of his descendants and many others here on earth and in a
multitude of those redeemed to whom he witnessed and won, and who’ve gone on to
rejoice with him in the Presence of the Most High God, our Heavenly Father.
On this Father’s Day
weekend I have good memories of Roy Blumenberg, my earthly father, whose
example still helps me to love my Heavenly Father even more.
I’m Rick Blumenberg and that’s
“My
View from Tanner Creek.”
No comments:
Post a Comment