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October 22, 2007
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=========================== TODAY'S ARTICLE ==========================
Hold Your Head Up!, by Phil Ware
Note:
This is one of several letters Phil is sending to his grown children to
help them know about their grandfather, called Daddy Al. You can find a
link at the bottom of the page to take you to a list of all the other
articles associated with this subject.
Dear Zachary and Megan,
Well, I'm not sure how much you are getting out of these letters
talking about your grandfather's values, but they've been a blessing to
me to write. Daddy Al passed away over twenty-seven years ago. It's
hard for me to believe he's been gone that long as some of these
memories seem like yesterday.
I can still remember sitting around the family kitchen table -- the
very same one we have in our kitchen today -- and talking with Daddy
Al. I was about to start my senior year in high school. Daddy Al's
illness was really taking him down in a hurry. He had just come back
from the asthma research center at National Jewish Hospital in
Colorado. The prognosis wasn't good. However, we sat there talking
about my plans to go to college and what would happen if Daddy Al lost
his job.
Little did we know how hard a year it would be. The very fact that MiMi
survived was an incredible testimony to her faith and strength. Daddy
Al was in ICU over and over again that year. His hospital was a
teaching hospital in Dallas associated with Southwest Medical School --
it wasn't Parkland, but a place that was later made into a prison. It
was in a very rough part of town and at night we had to pass by
prostitutes and drug dealers on the streets nearby to the hospital if
we were going to see Daddy Al. It was a tough, tough time for all of
us.
But as Daddy Al and I sat there at the kitchen table, just a few months
before all these difficulties set in, he was reassuring me that my
plans for college would work out. "I've served the Lord for more than
twenty years and he's never let me down. He's not going to abandon us
now. Keep your head up and trust the Lord's going to go with us no
matter what happens."
I remember three things from that moment as if it were yesterday --
yes, even though I didn't know I would be a preacher then, I still
remembered things in threes way back then. First, I remember Daddy Al's
unshakeable faith. Second, I remember that he didn't assume that he
would be healed; he trusted that the Lord would go with us wherever the
path ahead took us. Third, he told me to keep my head up.
Daddy Al hated what he called "the hang dog" look. What he meant by
that was the
defeated-shuffling-along-with-your-head-down-defeated-look. He had all
sorts of ways of confronting us about this look:
"Get your head up, son, you're a Ware and a Ware doesn't quit when
things are tough."
"Hold your head up high, Phil, the Lord thinks a whole lot more of
you than you probably are thinking about yourself right now."
"Get that head up! No son of mine is going to go around
disrespecting himself that way."
At the time, I thought he was just riding me too hard over something
not very important. Of course Daddy Al knew some things that I didn't.
He knew that we are often treated by others the way we present
ourselves to them. He knew that we were precious enough for Jesus to
die for us, so we shouldn't think of ourselves so poorly. He knew our
attitude is often dictated as much by how we carry ourselves as it is
by our circumstances. He knew our resiliency and determination are
often revealed when we refuse to surrender to tough circumstances and
keep our heads up and keep on the path.
As I look back, this saying means much more to me now than it did many
years ago. It's not about pride or arrogance, it's about having a
spirit that says, "I won't quit. The Lord didn't quit on me and I'm not
going to quit on Him."
I wish I could promise you that there will not be hard days!
I always thought that Mimi's favorite passage in the Bible was Psalm
139, which talks about the Lord being with us wherever we go, from the
moment of conception through our very moment of physical death. She
could put her feelings about that into deeply spiritual words. This was
her theological basis for the grit and determination that carried her
through this tough time. Daddy Al just put it a little more bluntly:
"Hold your head up, son, the Lord thinks a whole lot more of you than
you do of yourself."
As our family journeyed with Daddy Al's illness through the "suburbs of
hell," we were broken, battered, discouraged, hurt, angry, and
grief-stricken. But, the Lord was there with us on the path, and
because we walked with Him, and He with us, we held our heads high in
hope, trusting that there were better days ahead. There have been, and
we're still on this side of glory.
I wish I could promise you that there will not be hard days in your
future -- days that try your soul and wither your heart. You know I
can't promise you that. Disappointments and difficulties will come.
However, your Daddy Al was right: the Lord won't desert you. You are
more precious to Him than you can imagine. So don't walk around with a
"hang dog" look in tough times. Keep your head up, trust in the Lord,
and keep on walking forward.
It's not so hard to follow the Lord when you are "soaring on wings like
the eagles." It's not even all that hard when you can "run and not grow
weary." The real test comes, however, to see if you can keep on walking
-- with your head held high -- and not faint, in the face of trial,
disappointment, and disaster. But I'm confident you can keep walking,
with your head up, because we are a family of faith. We trust we are
worth more than we know to Jesus and we build our lives on the promise
that He will never leave us or forsake us.
I wish you could know how much I love you both and how proud I am to be
your father. So hold your head up and trust that your future is in the
hands of the Lord.
Love,
Dad
---------
(c) 2007 Phil Ware <phil@heartlight.org>. All rights reserved.
RELATED LINKS:
* Take Heart!
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200609/20060926_takeheart.html
* One Problem at a Time
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200005/20000518_algebra.html
* My Heart is Greater Than This!
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200001/20000111_heart.html
* Southern Hills Church of Christ
http://www.southernhillschurch.org
This article can be found on the web at:
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200710/20071022_holdheadup.html
=========================== FEATURED PRODUCT =========================
THE SECRET MESSAGE OF JESUS: UNCOVERING THE TRUTH THAT COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING, by Brian McLaren
Unafraid of controversy or the uncomfortable gray areas of life,
McLaren's quest is to find the essential message of Jesus' life - even
if it overturns our conventional ideas, priorities, and practices.
http://shopping.heartlight.org/cgi-shl/link?253
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