Proverbs 14:26
Whoever fears the Lord has a secure fortress,
and for their children it will be a refuge.
My father died. Until yours dies, you don’t understand the tragedy, the rift in the fabric of creation, left by the death of a parent. That is as it ought to be. This is one of things one is not intended for us to understand until it is our time to experience it. Right up to the point of death, you don’t believe that your parents are subject to this banal event. There is no such thing as life without them. They are your origin, your stronghold, the genesis of your own legacy. A thing once began cannot be erased. But there you are, reading those words: “The doctor just called. He’s gone.”
Every person with a good father would say the same thing. “My dad was different. He wasn’t like other dads.” I say the same thing, but I believe that in the grand scheme of dads, mine was unique. He was not better or worse than others, just not your run-of-the-mill good dad. His was called to the Lord’s work without letting on that he was in the trenches. As we have heard over and over since his death, “he was a legend.”
My dad lived his life in compartments. He had a vibrant home life. He had a vibrant work life. He had a vibrant social life. He had a vibrant life of ministry. The common thread that ran throughout his life, though, was a vibrant adoration for God our Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth. People knew my dad in maybe one or two of these nooks and crannies; only his family experienced his life in in its fullness.
Each of us kids spoke about my father at his memorial service, and each struggled to communicate the extraordinary man our dad was. We tried to give a picture of just how epic my dad’s life was. Here is the script of what I said at my dad’s memorial service. I copy it here so that anyone who wants to begin to understand my dad’s total devotion to the Lord can have just a taste of his example.
“I remember my Aunt Nancy telling me when I was a little girl about the time my teen-aged dad hitchhiked across the country from Vista, California, to Morris Plains, New Jersey, sometimes even hitching a ride in the coal cars of trains, so that he could visit my very fancy great aunt. When he arrived on her front lawn, my fancy great aunt thought he was some homeless hippy. She soon realized that under all that grime and dirt and hair was my dad, and she was so very happy to see him!
I once asked my Oma what my dad was like as a boy. She said, “He was kind and thoughtful, and I always knew he wouldn’t get into trouble when he went on adventures.”
I know exactly what she was talking about. My dad was the kindest, most thoughtful, most adventurous man I have known, but I saw every one of those adventures through the lens of his prayers for his children. That kind, thoughtful, adventurous boy grew up to be a man who showed his kindness to me through his thoughtful prayers about the adventures life I was so obviously headed into. He prayed, ‘Please give my children wisdom in whatever they do in life.’ ‘Please teach their hearts to love you more and more.’ ‘Thank you for giving us health and good things to eat and a good place to live.’ ‘Keep my children safe and guard their hearts so they can grow up to serve you.’ His prayers and adages were the liturgy of our upbringing, as poignant as Augustine’s own confession, ‘You move us to delight in praising You; for You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.’
And so, my dad gave me the desire to boldly take on every adventure the Lord brings my way, no matter how dangerous or how hopeless the cause.
And adventures did abound in our family. My dad raised us as free-range kids who played in the mud holes he dug for us, climbed the mountains he took us to, took wild rides in the dune buggy he built for us, climbed the trees he grew for us, swung on the swings he hung for us, and our souls consumed this great nation God has allowed us to live in as we rode in the back seat behind our dad. ‘Look out the window, this land is your land, and this land is my land.’ I believed him when he told me he was a race car driver as he sped around the corners of Lake Wohlford Grade at top speed. He erased my childhood fears by his quiet self-assuredness in the face of danger, and fears were replaced by fearlessness. I could not begin to count the number of times a friend or adult asked, with horror in their voice, ‘Does your dad let you do that?’ to which I responded, ‘My dad was the one who taught me how to do this.’
But the thrills my dad led us into were only the smallest part of the wisdom in adventures he prayed for us. When I was about 12 years old, I began to know my dad as an adventurous warrior in the army of the Lord. He was Patrochlous fighting for the Achians in the Trojan war, fighting the battles others refused to take on. He joined the battle of loving the unlovable, trusting the untrustworthy, employing the unemployable, teaching the unteachable. At that time I began to work at VIP, and my dad and I had many long car rides to and from work, and I asked questions. There were many people working for him who didn’t look so good, didn’t smell so great, and didn’t speak as cleanly as one might expect. He told me, ‘Well, that man just got out of prison and I think he will change if he is given the chance.’ I interpreted that as ‘God brought that man my way so that I can join the fight for his soul.’ And so he hired the lost, the broken, the high, the criminal, the least of these. He employed the dying grandfather who needed that job to help feed his grandson, even though in the end he could hardly perform his job. He hired back the drug addict he had to let go the year before. I asked, ‘Why did you hire him back?’ ‘Because one of these times will be the time he turns his life around.’ And he prayed for most, if not all, of these folks. I once joked about his shop as one big halfway house. He looked at me with a pain his eyes that penetrated to my very soul and said, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.’ My immature mind mocked his efforts, and he still prayed that I would be wise and believed that God would answer his prayers. He got it that in God’s eyes, I was no better or worse than the felon I stood next to as we endlessly stamped numbers onto parts. My dad got that and jumped into that battle, flaming sword held high, and prayers to the almighty God on his lips.
So my dad brought me into adulthood with my heart burning for adventure, my mind verging on wisdom, and my soul understanding that the greatest adventure of all is to never say ‘no’ to even the most terrifying challenges the Lord brings our way. ‘Does your dad let you do that?’ has been replaced by my peers saying, ‘How do you do all that you do?’ My reply for years has been this: ‘My dad prayed that I would be like this.’
My dad’s story hasn’t ended. In fact, we know what happened next. As he wakened among the sheep, he heard the Mighty King say, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then my dad answered him, saying, ‘Lord, when did I see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did I see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did I see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer him, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
But when my dad sees me again in heaven, he will give me a huge hug and snuggle his beard on my head, and he will say, with that joyful mischief in his eyes, ‘Well, here you are. You sure did dawdle long enough!’ And I will look at him and say, ‘Oh, I see you are saving some of your lunch in your beard.’ And he’ll reach for the bit of ambrosial banquet the Lord prepared for him, and he will say, ‘Yes, and that was the most pleasant repast.'”
~ Kurt George Ackermann ~
Born: May 17, 1949, Orange, New Jersey
Died: October 13, 2023, San Diego, California
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