A Son Remembers

I did something last week I had never done before. I visited the grave of my father. I had not been to the site since we buried his body five years ago. I had not avoided going to my father’s grave. I simply had not been back in my old hometown in five years. But it was the week before Father’s Day, I was only an hour away, and I had several hours available, so I found myself standing over the military marker that identified the resting place of my dad’s earthly body.

I have long regarded my dad’s death as that moment when he “graduated to glory.” In a real, genuine sense, his graduation has been for me a source of inspiration and hope. My confidence in Jesus Christ and His word convince me that Dad is in a real place of profound joy and wonder and peace. I long to be there myself. So, while I miss conversation with Dad, I would have told you I was “over” my dad’s death. The emotions that swept over me as I stood over his marker surprised me.

As I stood there, a solitary figure surrounded by thousands of gravestones, gazing down upon the ground under which Dad’s body lay, I began to weep and pray.

I thanked God that because of what Jesus Christ has done on the cross, I can call God my “Father in heaven.”

I thanked Him that my dad had also trusted Jesus and was even now enjoying the magnificent fruit of God’s choice to save him and his choice to receive Christ. I thanked God that all that was beneath my feet was en empty shell, that my dad was bigger and stronger and more full of life right now than he had ever been here.

I thanked God that He had worked in my dad, had given him the very desire to be more like Jesus in word and deed (Philippians 2:13). I thanked God that though Dad stumbled often, he stumbled forward enough to instill in me a desire to know God as well.

And then, I thanked God that Dad was part of that “large cloud of witnesses surrounding us” (Hebrews 12:1), so Dad could hear me say, “Daddy, I love you. I miss you. I am eager to see you, to hug your neck, to kiss your forehead, and to worship Jesus with you.”