On this second “Father’s Day” since the passing of my father, I thought I would share a memory of my Dad.
The picture to the left represents an important part of my dad’s life. For more than 40 years, Dad conducted a 15 minute, daily radio program called, “Bible Meditations.” I don’t think many people understand what a commitment this work involved. Imagine setting aside a minimum of an hour every weekday, in the middle of the day, and working your schedule around it. That’s what Dad did for years. Frequently, he recorded his programs live at the radio station, but in later years, he recorded his programs on a reel-to-reel recorder, and eventually on CDs.
Whenever we went on vacation, or when Dad was away in a gospel meeting, or when we just wanted to be somewhere around noon, it required that Dad pre-record shows. I can remember Dad spending hours sitting at the microphone, making advance recordings so we could be out of town. I also remember countless times I would walk in on him as he was recording, causing him to have to start all over. I can only imagine how frustrating that must have been, but he never let on to me.
For those of you who listened to “Bible Meditations,” let me let you in on an insider tidbit. Do you see the stopwatch in the picture? Dad and I had a lot of fun with that through the years. My uncle gave me that stopwatch when I was about 12 years old. However, Dad commandeered it for his radio program. (For years we had a running joke that Dad would get me things for Christmas and my birthday that he wanted and would eventually take from me). This stopwatch was one of those things. But here’s the insider information. If you listen closely during many of Dad’s radio programs, you can hear the ticking of that stopwatch in many episodes.
Today, my (Dad’s) stopwatch sits on my desk. The time is set on 9.27 the month and day my Dad died. I look at this stopwatch every day and it serves to remind me that my time here is limited. Of course, it also serves to remind me of my Dad, the fun we had going back and forth about who that stopwatch belonged to. And it also serves to remind me of the untiring work my Dad did in the Kingdom.
(If you’ve never heard Dad’s radio show, you can listen to a cleaned up version [I removed the beginning song, and the local references and announcements] at “Bible Meditations.”