On this day 100 years ago, my father was born. December 2nd, 1922, to be exact.
The Lord took him away on December 12, 1987, at age 65. It would leave mom a widow for 15 years before being reunited with dad after her passing in December of 2002 - not in marriage, but as a member in Christ.
I can’t imagine growing up as a kid on an island in Indonesia. A simpler time without televisions, the internet, and smartphones. Indeed a time when a kid can be a kid without the distractions of social media and peer pressure that our young generation face today.
It was when kids spent more time playing and exploring the outdoors and less time in the house, a stark contrast with kids today who spend more than 7 hours a day behind a screen and less than 10 minutes playing outside the home.
The marriage rate was higher, and fatherless homes were fewer. A child was more likely to live in a house with both parents - but life was still challenging for dad. It was a different time that brought its own set of inconveniences.
As a kid, dad didn’t have the luxury of the many amenities and benefits our children and adults receive and have today. Still, he managed to survive and live on, as well as the many millions of kids growing up in Indonesia in the early 1920s and 30s.
Little did dad know that he would be entering a world war as a young teenager. World War 2 would cause him hunger, displacement, and imprisonment.
I am extremely grateful to God for mom and dad. As a husband and father, I think of them more often than you would believe. They were not perfect by any means, but they modeled a biblical view of a family and marriage.
Mom and dad would never see my daughters - I know they would have loved them with all their hearts, just as they would have loved all their grandchildren and great-grandchildren whom they have never seen.
What I have given my children and wife is what mom and dad gave me - the love of Jesus.
According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
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