Ministering words (of so many — thank you) from the Mailbox:
I‘ve put off writing this for a couple of days, but decided to go on and say ‘thanks’ for giving me a new outlook on my relationship with my dad.
The post you had about being in the combine with your dad and kids, and the painful interaction between the two of you – well – your dad and my dad are very similar in their methods of communication.
For as long as I can remember, our relationship has been like an open wound. Sometimes a little bit of healing takes place around the edges of the wound, but all too soon, something pulls and rips, the wound reopens, and I find myself trying to stop the bleeding.
… about “shifting” to get a different view …. (to see) a man who wanted to leave a legacy and not be forgotten.
That gave me a new insight on my dad….
So much forgiveness given for me, I want to give him a taste of that …’
-Anonymous daughter
:::
My father is 75 rs old and currently in an assisted living facility. He is the shell of a man I once knew to be so tough and strong.
He grew up a farmer and attempted to pass that love of working the land even though he was acommunications engineer. We would spend the summers working 2 acres by hand to grow corn, onions, tomoatoes, field peas, cabbage, potatoes, squash, & more. Back then I hated it, now I look back on it with good memories. It helped shape me into the man I have become.
The “the art of subtraction – shift to see” … (it) hit home about my relationship with my father. Out of the 4 children he’s left behind I am the youngest, & only one that still has a relationship to him.
All of my father’s other siblings only remember the barbs from him. They have no relationship with him except to call once a year around Christmas. They have no idea what they are missing but choosing to only see the bad in the past and not loving him for the good.
I know that God, my father, is able to look past my shortcomings, and see the good in me. The good I have done to others, the love I have tried to show…
I have been writing this e-mail in tears because I don’t want to waste any more moments I have with my father because one day he will only be a memory.
- Anonymous Son
:::
My own Daddy, is oh so missed. What I wouldn’t give to hold his calloused hand, and kiss his leathery cheek? Those Canadian daddys are tough, yes? Perhaps it’s the cold. Perhaps it’s their fierce loyalty to family, perhaps it’s their (feeling that loyalty) that makes them hold us daughters now wives so close it hurts.
Over the years, I am sure there were many barbed words poking and tugging at my flesh until it rubbed raw with a desperation to be enough…only for me it was a golf cart and not a combine that housed the ride.
And then he was gone.
Gone on the side of the road in his car.
Gone because his huge heart that loved so fiercely had betrayed him.
Gone on the way home from communing with his God during 18 holes.
Gone.
And those barbs now forgotten, missed even.
So while it’s hard to subtract to see now, let it not be a task that you leave …
-Anonymous Daughter
:::
I called my Dad this week just to say it again. “I love you.” And I shifted to see:
“And thanks. Thanks for being my Dad.”
Farmer Husband took his widowed father out last night for a heaping plate of fried chicken and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy.
I’ve got some baking to whip up in the kitchen this weekend…. some parents to love up with a token of homemade.
May your weekend wanderings, kind friends, perhaps have a phone call to a familiar voice, a card scrawled with just three words, a plate of sweet offered with a heart of thanks… a detour home.
We’ve been loved with So Great a Love by a Father has subtracted all our sins and shifted us into the Kingdom of Grace…
All’s grace, 
Related: The Fine Art of Subtraction: Shift to See
Photos: My Dad’s hands
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