Happy 80th Birthday Dad! I feel so blessed to be able to help celebrate this milestone in your life. As a child, I would have been surprised to know that we would get to celebrate this birthday together. I remember watching wide-eyed as a young girl when two of my cousins' husbands died at young ages, and when Aunt Nora's husband died, too -- I was always afraid that you would be next! So to be here today, and honor you on your 80th birthday seems to me quite remarkable!

I'd like begin my tribute by telling of the time when I was a young girl and I had been given the job of sweeping the downstairs porch. As I was doing the job, you came by to check my progress and I thought it would be a good time to hit you up for some cash. I asked if I could get paid for sweeping the porch, and you stopped and thought for a few seconds and then said, "I could pay you to sweep the porch..." And I thought "Oh my, I can't believe this is going to be this easy -- why didn't I ask this a long time ago?" But you continued! "I could pay you 25 cents to sweep the porch, but then when we go to watch your brothers play ball at the Stevens Ball Park, you'd have to buy your own snacks." Now I was never a real math whiz, but I started adding the prices of Dilly bars and hot dogs in my head, and it wasn't too long before I told you that I would be happy to sweep the porch for free!

I am indebted to you for your shining example in reading the Bible. I always knew that you read your Bible, but it was only after I graduated from high school, that I would get up early in the morning to get ready for work; and without fail, I would find you in your chair reading the Bible. I also remember that you took my sister and me aside and explained that you would give us each $50 when we read through the Bible. And as you might guess from my previous interest in money, that was a good carrot to hold out in front of me!

There is one thing that really frustrated me as a young girl, although as I have matured I have seen the wisdom of your way, and that was an absolute refusal on your part to hear anything negative against anyone in authority. Andrea and I could come home from school and talk about our teacher that wasn't being fair, or the principal or Sunday School teacher, or whomever it was. You always took their side and reminded us to respect them. You were also fiercely loyal in preserving the memory of your parents. I never heard you speak unkindly of either your mother or your father.

And finally, when I think of you, Dad, I think immediately of strongly held and deeply believed convictions.  In a day when the American church is full of men who refuse to be leaders, to step up to the plate and say "this is what I believe, and I will gladly defend it"; I am so blessed to have a father who has not wavered in the things of God.

I recently found this quote from James David Hunter where he explains the reason behind some of the problems in our culture.

We want character but without unyielding conviction; we want strong morality but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame; we want virtue but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend; we want good without having to name evil; we want decency without the authority to insist upon it; we want moral community without any limitations to personal freedom. In short, we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it.

When I first read that quote, I was struck by two things, firstly, that by and large this is the world that I have grown up in, and secondly, I know that there is a better way, and I know that because I lived with you for 21 years and I saw you live out your convictions in front of me. You have shown unyielding conviction, I have heard you articulate moral justifications that invariably offend -- and sometimes (when the subject was what constitutes godly music or how a Christian woman should dress) I was the recipient!  But that didn't stop you from being a man and saying them anyway.

So thank you, Dad, for caring enough to confront, for loving me enough to put rules in my life, for praying for me, and for loving me as a father should... I love you, Dad!