Forty years ago this summer, Nancy and I moved from Austin, Texas, to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and I started teaching “Intro to Public Speaking” at Fort Wayne Bible College.  I had finished my Ph.D. coursework, and had passed my qualifying exams, and was supposed to be figuring out a research question for my dissertation. It took another four years to find that question and write that project.  

During the next eleven years, three children were born, and one child died. We bought our first house, sold that house, moved to Goshen, Indiana, bought another house, sold that house, moved back to Fort Wayne. I lost one job when the school merged into another school. I lost a second job. My third job was a career promotion but came in the middle of recovering from the loss of the second job.

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One of the most helpful things my dad ever said was in the middle of that season.

He said, “I’ve never done this.”

He said it after our middle daughter was born, knowing she wouldn’t live long. They’d driven from Wheaton in Fort Wayne, late at night, not knowing whether they’d arrive in time to meet her. The sheer humility of his presence and his acknowledged insufficiency was comforting.

My grandpa died when my dad was six. My dad was a veteran who had watched people die, who had spent months in the hospital recovering from his own war wounds. That night in the hospital could have been the time for a life lesson or a comparative sermon.

It wasn’t.

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It’s easy after the season to say to others who are in the season, “You just have to do this.” Or “You’ve got this.” Or “God’s got this.”

That night my dad offered his version of “this is hard.” I offer that to you, too.

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Photo: my parents shortly before my dad died.