Earthly Gift from my Heavenly Father

Hi.

I made it to our Des Moines church for the first time in far too long today.  It was nice to be back.  Although Jered couldn't go because he had a stupid twelve hour night shift followed by the afternoon shift today, I had a lovely time with Molly, Jake, Lily, and Nate, enjoyed a morning coffee and chili supper with them, and was happy to hear someone teach God's Word again.

Today was a great day to be there because they were just starting a new series, dissecting the Lord's Prayer.  Pastor Dave made an interesting point that we tend to go to extremes with the prayer.  We either decide we don't want to have a prayer that's been used so much that it's become routine and don't use it at all, or we do use it and forget what we're really praying.  However, Jesus gave it as an explanation of how to pray for a reason.

Anyway, as we were covering the first phrase of the prayer, the notion of God, our Father was discussed at great length.  The difference between our Earthly fathers and our Heavenly Father was stressed.  Although it wasn't the main point of the sermon, I was led to thinking about my dad, and how much my Heavenly Father has blessed me with him.

One of the blogs I follow is by a girl who also went to TIU.  She is a great writer.  She makes me tear up at times and laugh at others.  I would highly recommend reading Because You Asked Me To.

Recently, she celebrated her dad's birthday by making a list of reasons why and things she loved about her dad, and I thought- what a cool thought.  She listed 50 reasons for his 50th birthday.

It's not my dad's birthday.  But, I spent a great deal of my morning thinking about him, so today will do just fine for me.  I am going to copy Courtney's idea and give you a list of reasons why, and things I love about my dad.

*Some of my earliest memories are of Dad reading to us at bedtime and calling me "punkin."

*He is incredibly slow to anger.  Ridiculously so sometimes.

*He has this fantastic hoarse laugh, where when he really gets going, there's either no sound, or just a hoarse, wheezy sound that comes out.

*He loves games.  When we were little and stayed up with Mom and Dad on New Year's Eve, we would have a board game to play.  I remember playing Aggravation.  We never go on a vacation without a deck of cards.

 

*One year he got this intricate farm set for Christmas- tons of animals, detailed pieces, and different fences that went with different kinds of animals.  I remember "it's Dad's farm model."  But he always let us play with it, and I remember it being a ridiculous amount of fun.

*He never moves his feet when he dances.

*He brought us up watching the old Star Wars movies.  I used to get furious when he would want to watch the behind the scenes interviews with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

*Every year, on Christmas morning, he reads us the Christmas story from the Bible before we open gifts.

*He loves Christmastime.  He will save up extra vacation time to be able to take more time off around Christmas.

*He bakes cookies when he's home for Christmas vacation.

*He makes amazing egg sandwiches.

*Every year, he buys pumpkins for Katie and me.  (He wanted me to send him a picture when I finished this year's.  I never got around to carving it, but it made a lovely decoration for October, and now that Thanksgiving is right around the corner, it's been transformed a bit.)

 

*He loves puzzles.  Every single Christmas, the coffee table is dedicated to a Christmas puzzle. 

*He brought us up right- as Cardinals' fans, and one year took just Katie and me down for a game for "Dad, Kate, and Aimee's Day of Fun."

*When I was in the pageant and had to have a convertible to ride in for the parade, he secured an awesome one and drove me.

 

*He always made sure we had anything we needed, and tried to get us the things we wanted most.

*He taught me the importance of working hard for things I wanted.

*Sleeping in and skipping church wasn't an option.  Going to church was all we knew growing up.  It was a part of life.

*He taught us to be silly.

*He really gets into Guitar Hero.  Hilariously so.

 

*Every once in a while, usually in the winter, he grows out this really fantastic scruffy beard that Katie and I are in love with.

*He's made me love traditions.

*When we come home for a visit, he tries to stock up on foods or snacks that he knows we love.  Around Christmas he gets eggnog for Jered, even though no one else likes it.  He tries to keep ice cream on hand for milkshakes, and always asks what we want him to get at the store.

*He's a push over.  But not in a bad way.  In the "'Dad, we don't want to watch Fox News.. How about Home Alone?'...'Put it iiiin.'" kind of way.

*He made sure I had a clean car on our wedding day.

*He has a really hard time keeping his eyes open for outside pictures.

*He always stressed good grades and trying my best at school.

*He would always listen to me when I needed to vent about work or school or Chicago parking tickets.

*When we were little, the best nights were nights when Dad would wrestle with us.  He would pretend he was asleep until we crawled all over his back, and then attack us with tickles.

*He loves my mom.  He does things like shopping for groceries because she hates doing it.

*He really, really loves the Cardinals.  During games, he and Uncle Colby text each other back and forth through the whole thing- to the point where we ask him why they don't just watch it together.

*When we go out together somewhere, he always walks like he's on a mission.  He never saunters.

*He always wore big, white, Nike tennis shoes.  You know- like the 407s Ryan Gosling is offended by in Crazy, Stupid, Love.  But then, last Christmas we got him to step out of his comfort zone and got him some sleek, black and blue shoes.  

*During the colder months, he always tried to have a fire in the fire place whenever possible.

*He somehow, sneakily fills up my gas tank every time we visit home.

*He took us to hockey games a lot.

 

*He loves surprises.  Well, surprising other people.  A couple years ago, he surprised us kids by taking us to see Trans Siberian Orchestra for a Christmas concert.

*We've only been able to surprise him once.  It was Christmas, and we got him a hunting bow.

*He rides the rides with us at places like Silver Dollar City.  It's fantastic to listen to him laugh on the Big Barn Swing.

*He still holds Mom's hand.  Someone told me that after Katie and I were both out of the house, they were all cute and holding hands at church like newlyweds.

 

*He is a vacation fanatic.  Hardly a year goes by without one.  

 

*He has a goal to visit every state.  One time when we were on vacation on the east coast, we drove two states away for lunch, stopping to get out of the car to touch the ground in the state we drove through.

*He has been letting us alter his wardrobe little bits at a time to keep him looking stylish.

 

*He found a way to survive as the only man in a family of girls.

*He loves when Jered comes to visit because then he has someone to play Wii golf or fishing with him.

*He is ruthless when he plays games.  He didn't go easy on us because then we wouldn't improve.

*He's still a little kid at heart most of the time.

 

*He understands that it's essential that we have all of the Disney classics on DVD.

*He is sacrificial.  He will work loads of overtime so that we can go on vacation, or to give me the wedding of my dreams, or to help us pay for college.

*I take back my former statement- sometimes, he does move his feet when he dances- like when he jumps in for the line dances at weddings.

*When I get him to laugh at a joke, I feel like the funniest person in the world.

*He loves helping people, but he doesn't like for them to know about it.

*He hates being the center of attention.

*He cracks himself up sometimes.

*He's supportive.

*He wants the absolute best for us.

*He's worn contacts forever, but his glasses that he would change into at night were these enormous, incredibly thick lenses.  He still wore them after one of the temples fell off, and finally bought a newer, smaller pair a couple years ago.  It was a sad day at the Rude household, as the big ones were the only ones Katie and I had ever seen him wear.  She wouldn't let him get rid of them.

*He's rather dashing.  

 

*He has adorable mannerisms.  Sometimes Katie and I will watch him from a distance, and eventually one of us says, "Dad is so cute."

*He's a softie.  He never wanted us to get a dog, but he gave in twice.  And when he was sick, Ringo was his little buddy.  They were kind of joined at the hip.  Ringo would always be in his spot, curled up against Dad on the couch.

*He's really secretive at Christmas.  He still doesn't let us come downstairs until everything is ready.

*He's good about helping my mom with dishes.

*He always makes sure that Katie and I help Mom get things ready when she's stressed before people come over.

*He loves history.  Sometimes I think he should have been a history teacher.  We've gone on multiple vacations to the east coast to visit places like Williamsburg and the Statue of Liberty and Washington D.C. to do educational, touristy things.

*He loves us.  He loves us alot.  Of the few times I've seen him angry, the majority has been because he's felt we've been wronged somehow.

*He's never taken us on a trip without a bag of Twizzlers.

*He takes care of us in all kinds of ways- like making sure we had plenty of boxes for moving.

*When he gets annoyed, he is hilarious.  He heaves an exasperated sigh and rolls his eyes, but it only makes it more fun to bug him.

*He spoils Jered just like he's Katie or me.

*He found a way to spoil us without making us spoiled.

*He is a God-fearing man, who taught us to be the same way.

*He is good.

I could keep going guys, but this is probably already one of the longest posts I've done.  The point is, we've been blessed enough to have an amazing Earthly father, and I could not ask for more.

Love you, Dad!

Aimee Lou