My Dad’s Hands
One of the disadvantages of having had good parents is that you miss them all the more when they have passed away. It was fifteen years earlier in the month since my Dad died; I still miss him. I just want to muse here upon his hands.
My Dad had farmers’ hands. No surprise there because he was a farmer. But they were real farmers’ hands that authenticated his calling. Thick fingers and remnant callouses. They were just the large hands of a man who had worked at farming all his life.
My Dad was no theoretical farmer. His hands proved that he actually did the farm work. Alas, there are a lot of theoretical Christians around who think and talk about getting out and living for the Lord, but give little evidence in their lives that they ever get on and do it.
My Dad’s hands also reveal a man of relentless commitment. Those hands were not formed by spasmodic bursts of devotion to his land and his animals which he indulged in when the feeling took him. Those hardened hands spoke of a man who in all weathers and in all feelings still kept going to fulfil his calling. Not a fair weather farmer my Dad. I fear there are a lot of fair weather Christians around. When the heat of life has risen and the difficulties of life have encroached upon them they have said “not today” to the Lord and copped out until some easier day. Their flabby characters and tepid passions betoken fair-weather Christianity.
And as I finally think of those hands I think of all that labour my Dad engaged in in order to earn a good living. And on the back of that good living that he laboured to achieve I have benefitted so much. The older I get the more I appreciate what he did for me. Thanks Dad, I miss you.
I wrote here about my Dad; he was a great man.