A Tender Heart

When I was a kid, my mom and dad were always up before the 5 of us kids, except on Sunday morning.  That's the day they would stay in bed, propped with pillows against the headboard of their bed reading the Sunday newspaper and drinking coffee, coffee that one of us older kids usually made for them. The best of my earliest memories of  daddy was a day like that.  Even though he's been gone now 21 years, I still remember it like yesterday.

My Daddy a few years before his death

I was six, in first grade and having a tough time.  I had a case of warts on my hands. "Warty" a group on the playground called out to me during recess day after day.  The very shy girl stood alone, wanting to cry...the wounds of humiliation and rejection taking the breath away even in one so young...wanting to run home, if I only knew the way....and every school day morning the lump would rise up in my throat and with it the dread of all dreads like a ball and chain dragging behind me all the way to school ...not able to speak it in words to my Mommy, why I didn't want to go to school. 

But one Sunday morning, as Daddy read the paper and drank his coffee, with me and Johann, the family dachshund, sitting on the bed with him and Mommy, it all spilled out.  My daddy put his arm around me as he moved the newspaper aside...and he said he thought I needed a loyal friend...so from now on, Johann would belong to just me.  Daddy said Johann would always be my special friend and always love me because dogs always love their owners...and the doctor was called, the warts were removed, the lump in my throat was healed, and the ball and chain were released....

a Johann look-a-like

That's when I knew that my daddy loved me and cared about my feelings...and as I got older, though he had a tough exterior and was often impatient, short-tempered and critical, I knew my Daddy also had a tender heart...even when he couldn't say it in words...because my Daddy had been wounded as a child...more than just in first grade...and his wounded heart was still tender from the hurt....

And be kind to one-another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.  Ephesians4:32

 

Tenderhearted means "well compassioned" and "sympathetic" according to Strong's Concordance of the Bible.  Newer definitions include "having a kind, gentle, or sentimental nature," and "easily moved by another's distress." I don't know all the specifics, but I do know that my daddy had a very difficult childhood.  He was wounded and scarred, and it kept him down in many ways throughout adulthood. His scars showed up in anger far more than in compassion and sympathy. 

But through the years as I grew up, the knowledge of Daddy's tender heart never left me... I made it through the rough spots with Daddy with the same compassion for him that he had had for me when I was six.  As a teenager, especially, I still had plenty of angry and bitter feelings at times over incidents that were hurtful, but as I matured, God gave me understanding that when Daddy acted the most angry, he felt the most inadequate.

Thank you Lord for giving me the good memories to get me through the hard ones that come with growing up with imperfect parents! Thank you for always renewing my mind so that I can think with yours, for giving me your Spirit so I can love with your love, and for giving us Ephesians 4:32--the law of personal Christian relationships....and....Eph. 5:1-2...the perfect one to imitate....

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us....

In memory of my Daddy....Happy Father's Day

showing his tender side, with my newborn daughter, his 6th grandchild