Day 43: Family Matters

I totally know you guys are all just sitting around hoping, just hope upon hope, that you will pop open my blog and I will be telling you some incredible story about another family member.  So . . . today is your lucky day!  My next installment of Family Matters.

When I was a little girl, I was TOTALLY a daddy's girl.  My world revolved around him.  I can even remember being a little girl, standing on his feet, gazing up into his eyes, and dancing with him.  He was my world.  My knight in shining armor.

But my knight had a dark side.  He was an alcoholic.  And following his divorce from my mom, for a period of about 5 years, he really went off the deep end.  Very often he lived on the streets, homeless and drunk, and I almost never heard from him.

But a near death experience snapped him into the realization that he had a lot to live for, and three kids, almost grown-ups by then, who desperately needed him to get his act together, and so he did.

The love of a good woman and the love of Jesus rescued him from the man he was.

And now, well, maybe he's not a knight, but he's a sweet man; a man that loves Jesus, a man that loves his kids and grand kids, a man that loves his wife and a man who has been sober for over 35 years.

I heard him tell someone at my church recently (when they commented about how sweet he was) he said, "Well, I figure we all got some good in us and we all got some bad in us.  And I just used up all my bad early on."  (If you say that in a super country voice, you can imagine what he sounds like!)

Other notable facts about my dad.  My dad is brilliant.  He devours the newspaper every single day of his life, and he doesn't forget anything (which makes him pretty freaking awesome at Trivial Pursuit at Christmas!)  And he loves to have fun!

My dad is 72 years old (soon to be) and he still goes on mission trips.  He serves at VBS at his church, works in the sound booth, and teaches RA's (a group similar to scouts.)  He works with the homeless and at the food bank.  He helps fix  the homes of widows.  He is so incredibly active, constantly giving to others.

And he is a phenomenal "Pawpaw" as he is called by his grand kids.  Even when Nikki and Shannay met him for the first time (see below) they were immediately enamored.  He calls it "Pawpaw magic."

All that to say, I guess I'm still a daddy's girl.