In My Father’s House

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There were more Christmases with missing characters.  There were five-hour heated elder board meetings. There were church-wide arguments about whether to paint the sanctuary baby blue or moss green.  There were lots of marriages, and births, and deaths.  My dad continued to pastor the church, and our family continued to be frustrated and inconvenienced and overly-scrutinized.  Nothing changed, really, but somehow we stopped minding so much.  The undercurrents swirling around us became familiar, even comforting.

After one disastrous board meeting, my dad was sitting on the back step cooling down when my five-year-old brother joined him. “I should go, shouldn’t I?” my dad said, putting his head in his hands. “I’ve put you kids and your mom through too much.  I should just go.”

My brother shook his head, and put his hand on my dad’s knee.  “I think you should stay, daddy,” he said quietly.  “They’re like lost sheep, and you’re their shepherd.”

And so we stayed — for a few more years, anyway.

The year before we left, one of my favorite men in the church was diagnosed with brain cancer.  His name was Vern, and he was a hog farmer.  A few weeks after his diagnosis, he died on a makeshift bed in the kitchen of his farmhouse, with my dad holding his hand, singing him Home.

I lost the contest in front of his casket, because it made me sick to see his vacant, ashen face.  My brothers and I sat side-by-side in the pew with my mom, on our best behavior as we listened to my dad deliver the message of hope from John 14.  I missed this man who had become a familiar family friend, and for the first time in my life, I cried in church.

And that’s how it was, growing up in my father’s house.  If it were not so…

…I would have told you.

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