Only saw Dad cry once. Perhaps he did it more often than that, but I never saw it. It was the summer of ‘67 and someone told Dad he had better come home from work. Getting out of his truck with his hard hat still on, he was informed that his Marine Corps son was seriously wounded in Viet Nam. This was the nineteen-year-old that had his father’s name. The tears rolled down his cheeks and his lips trembled. I was a fifteen-year-old son observing that kind of grief for the first time.
There is probably nothing in a man’s life that can penetrate the soul like the suffering of a son. His sadness turned to anger probably because he signed the paperwork so this underage offspring, who was barely seventeen years old, could join the service.
This father-son relationship is referred to so many times in the Bible. As the Son was tortured on Calvary, the Father had to break all contact:
Matthew 27:46
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
This was a fulfillment of Psalm 22:1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me,
This is the way God has chosen to reveal to us the seriousness of sin and the length He went through to redeem us.
Give it some thought.
Gary