Where there’s hope, there’s hope.
What would you call a man who lived as an early teenager through the horrors of WWII in the Netherlands, who was described later in life as being about the most positive and encouraging person people had ever met?
I’d call him my dad!
During the war, he had to run the family farm with his grandfather because his dad and uncles were in hiding from the Germans.
Oh, the stories he could tell! He wrote a book about them. He shared them in classrooms, churches, and retirement groups.
He was proud of his Dutch and Friesian ancestry while also being proud later in life to be a citizen of the United States.
He was the ultimate encourager. A phrase he said many times that went down in our family lore was “There’s sunshine behind those clouds”.
His superpower throughout life was his faith in Jesus. He had such joy, even when his wife, my mother, passed away 6 years before he did. The Bible says “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul…. (Hebrews 6:19).” My dad was the embodiment of this hope!
The last lesson I learned from him was finishing life well.
He spent the last 2.5 years of his life in a retirement home, the last 8 months in nursing care. Do you know what happened the day he went home to Jesus?! A steady stream of workers from the facility came in to say their goodbyes, some crying as they did so, and this from people who had only known my dad for a couple of months to 2.5 years at most.
I don’t know about you, but I want this kind of reaction from people when I go home to Jesus.
How are you encouraging and blessing the people you meet?!
