So this is my gift to him.
Greg Friend is my Dad. He is an amazing man of God, a man that I have followed closely as a role model my entire life. It wasn't until I left home that I really realized home much I take him for granted. God didn't have to give me an great father. He didn't even have to put me in a household that stayed together. But He did, and it has been one of the biggest factors in shaping me as not only a man, but as the man of God that I am seeking to be every day of my life.
I'm sitting here trying to remember the earliest memory that I have of my Dad. There are a few things that I can think of. One is going to church as a family at First Baptist. Another is my Dad mowing the lawn on Saturday mornings. But the one that comes to mind the strongest is when he lead me to the Lord. I remember sitting in church the Sunday before, partaking of communion. My Dad told me after the service that I would not be able to partake in communion anymore because of my age and that I hadn't accepted Christ as my Savior. I remember that moment with a huge respect. He saw my age and who I was and knew that my age of accountability had come. That next Saturday, My sister and I went with my Dad in our van to REI in Portland. My Dad started to ask me questions about what I believed and at the end he told me that if I believed what I has just said, I was a follower of Christ. I remember coming home and him telling me to tell my Mom what I had done. She cried :)
The wisdom I have observed in my Dad is something I can only hope to achieve in my future. The ways he has been able to handle my sister and I's various stages of life has been something I only hope to be like one day. Through our childhoods, to fighting between my sister and I, to have to discipline, to puberty, to going through relationships they knew would only end in pain, to watching me have to leave home. Through all of the crazy stages, He has sought God's help through all of it.
Now he isn't perfect. Of course he isn't. None of us are. But I have been so blessed to be able to be his son. I can't even express how thankful I am. As I sit here in this laundromat in Grand Rapids MI, 1857 miles away from where my Dad is right now, I long to be there with him today, to go to church with him, to sit down and talk about things. I want nothing more on this day than to be there with him. But God has me here. So I will carry on with the strength and grace that he showed me and helped me learn in these 20.8 years of my life.
I'll see you soon Dad. I can't wait to show you around Michigan in August :)
Your loving and forever grateful son,
John
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