The Day Dad Wept

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Dad had never wept before. Not even at Grandma Reese’s funeral. At least I had never seen him. So it came as quite a shock, the day Dad wept.

To say that Dad was quiet and an introvert is putting it mildly. I’m quiet and introverted too. But I’m downright chatty and hysterical compared to my dad. Coming from generations of Norwegian sheepherders, who spent long lonely summers near the Arctic Circle tending sheep and even lonelier winters huddled in log cabins, Dad’s genes had distilled introversion into pure stoicism. The result was that my dad viewed emotion the way dogs view skunks and porcupines: to be avoided at all cost.

But one day that stoic introversion cracked like hard, chapped skin, and bled emotion. This is how it happened.

It was another warm, sunny, summer afternoon in west Los Angeles; the kind of day Southern California is famous for. It never gets humid in the summer in LA. And in west LA, due to the cool breeze coming off the Pacific four miles away, it almost never gets really hot, which makes air conditioning optional. Mom and Dad had opted out of AC. So when things got a little toasty in our house, we’d just open up the large windows in the breakfast room and let the cool ocean air waft over us.

And that breakfast room, with the widows open and the curtains blowing in the breeze, is where we sat as we finished lunch. It was a Saturday and Mom and Dad, along with my Sister, Dot, and myself had slept in. That meant we hadn’t had our daily family devotions yet.

Now, I don’t remember a single day in our home when we didn’t have family devotions. They were never anything elaborate. Our family would eat breakfast together and afterwards Dad would simply read a brief section of Scripture and then pray. The whole process took maybe five minutes. But we always did it, every single day.

Since we hadn’t had devotions that morning, Dad decided to do them then. He pulled out his tattered Bible and began to read the story of Moses and the burning bush in Exodus 3. As he read along, I closed my eyes and listened:

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight why the bush does not burn up.

When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”

Suddenly, Dad stopped. Awkward silence followed.

And then it happened. Dad began to cry…but then he immediately stifled it. So to us it seemed more like he was having some kind of attack. I opened my eyes in shock. “What was that?” I wondered. “Is Dad having a stroke? Is he sick?”

My dad was embarrassed. So he did the only thing he could do. He began to pray. He started with a stammering voice.

“Dear Lord, I thank you that you are not only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…” Dad’s voice was quivering now. “…but you are also my God.”

And then Dad couldn’t hold it back any longer. He broke into a full throttled cry. Mom and Dot and I looked up from the prayer. We were in complete shock. We had never seen him like this. We didn’t know what to say.

Then suddenly Dad stood bolt upright. He was embarrassed now. He stared out through the open breakfast room window and, without looking at any of us, wiped the tears from his eyes. Then he blurted out, “Well, it doesn’t hurt to get a little emotional every once in a while!” and turned and left the room.

Mom, Dot and I looked at each other and smiled. We all knew we had just witnessed something special: the moment a man of God realizes the full implications of what it means to stand in a line of people of whom it is said that God is pleased to be called their God.

So here is the amazing truth: The God who is pleased to call Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…and yes, Ben Reese, is also my God…and, dear believer, yours too. And He’s proud of it.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

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