You Are Just Like Him

When she said those five words to me, I was astonished, ahgast, flabbergasted, mystified. She never knew my dad who died long before I even met her. At the time, she had not even seen a picture of him and only knew what I told her of him. By the way, allow me to inject a word of advice to husbands. Tell your wife the good side of your father. Anyway, I told my wife the bad side of my father because at the time, it was difficult for me to remember the good side of my dad. So when my wife said to me, "You are just like him", I was taken aback. How could she say such a thing? He drank; he gambled; he cursed a lot; he carried a gun in his pickup and wasn't afraid to use it; at times, he was very unkind and verbally abusive toward my mother. I prided myself that I was none of those things. Yet, she said it again, "You are just like him". I tell you, she saw in me what I had not seen in myself-my dad alive and well in his son. That's when I took note to begin to deal with the bad side of my dad in me by the Grace of God and the Christ in me. By the Grace of God, I am becoming less like the bad side of my earthly father and more like my heavenly father. 062020PS