Happy Birthday, Dad!

Dad and Mom Haken with the Grandkids

Today was my Dad’s birthday. He’s been gone 25 years already and I still miss him.

I can still hear him praying with me on the telephone whenever we talked.

I remember him witnessing to the nursing staff when he was in the hospital having chemo.

I remember him telling me from his hospital bed that I "married a good man.”

His love for people was only exceeded by his love for God. Although as a child I did not always appreciate it, I remember him reading the Bible at the table after supper and leading the family in prayer. I remember hearing him pray out loud with Mom in their bedroom at night and hearing my name as they prayed for us kids.

I remember him bringing unexpected guests home to have a meal with us, often at the last minute. I remember his love for missionaries and mission work.

I remember how much people loved his Bible teaching and I recall the hours he would spend in his downstairs study preparing. I remember how much he loved doing “the Lord’s work.” No task was too menial or too great – whether cleaning gutters at the Bible Camp, or preaching from the pulpit at various churches, or visiting the sick and imprisoned, or counseling those in troubled marriages, or leading a board meeting – it was all the Lord’s.

And I wonder why God took him so early? Why after only 68 years? And I don’t know.

Had he lived we would have celebrated his 93^rd birthday today. But he is more alive now than ever before because he believed it when God said, “I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish” and “Whoever has the Son has life.”

So, Happy Birthday, Dad. I couldn’t have asked for a better Father. God blessed me when He put me in your family. I love you.  (And yes, I still remember that you didn’t put up with us showing any disrespect to our mother. J)

And I sometimes wonder what my children will remember about me when I am gone.  What will yours?