Lessons from My Father’s Feet, Part 3

The Return of Joy

I’ve been learning another lesson these days. It’s an interesting one. You see my dad and I were often like oil and water. We didn’t mix well. By the time I was a teen, the fond memories of baseballs hit in the yard, footballs kicked, sun fish caught had all but been forgotten. Replaced instead with arguments over chores, privileges, failures, and my own laziness. Add to those the strife of a home in conflict, a man struggling with the death of his own parents, his own demons of alcohol, l and any joy in our relationship was lost. Gone were the days when at five or six I would wait on the porch for the first glimpse of my dad walking up the street and run just to walk the rest of the way home with him.

Here is my lesson. The enemy steals so much from us. He multiplies the hurts of the past and infects them until they taint every moment of the present But when we allow God to heal the hurt, He changes the inside of our lives and a marvelous thing occurs. Joy returns.

A lot of healing has taken place. Years ago mine began as I embraced the
transforming Savior. Slowly the hurts were healed, the pain released and the whole man emerged. Dad began his transformation years ago. He did what he could. Soberness was embraced. He fathered a grandson with an absent father. He never missed a game, an event. And when he could transform nothing else, last year he open himself to the Forgiver. Two men both carrying great hurts, both who once hurt each other, so easily are healed. Joy returned.

My dad and I fished with a friend yesterday. He sat in a golf cart and rode around as we cast our flies on the water. He held a pole, he landed fish. And he and I glowed with joy. No anger about the past, no regrets, just joy moments in the present.

The lesson being reinforced in me is this: our God is a God of the present. And when He does His transforming work, He can restore joy even where the past was often dark with sorrow.