Honor Archives - Seeking God with Jaime Wiebel

The Carpenter’s Daughter

Jaime Wiebel — Sun, 21 Jun 2015 06:27:00 +0000

For the LORD is good. His unfailing
love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.
Psalm 100:5

As long as I
can remember, my father has been the hardest working man I have known.

My father
has been a self-employed carpenter for 42 years. Although there have been times
he had other people working with him, he has often worked alone.

I know every
time I have “helped him” I am amazed at how hard the work is that he does. Last summer my husband and I had our garage
reroofed and my husband took a few days off of work to help him. My husband,
who also works very hard, said, “I cannot believe how hard your dad works and
he is twenty years older.”

I remember when
I was in school and was in algebra and geometry class I would always think my
dad could do all the equations. I would show him my work and he would kind of
laugh at it. He had no idea how to do equations in a math book.

However, my
dad could build an entire house from the ground up, regularly doing equations
in his head. Measurements, fractions, shapes, angles, and more, he could do in
his sleep. He could take a blank piece of paper and draw a diagram with
everything perfectly in place for building anything. It absolutely amazed me
that he was that brilliant. For us it was the book work we could do and to him
it was real life and he could duplicate it with actual results.

My dad has
always been there for our family. He has always put our family first and loved
us endlessly.

Most people
would say dads of the seventies were different than dads today. My mom likes to
tell people they had four kids and my dad changed four diapers. Maybe not so
hands on in the diaper changing area but my parents rarely left us and had
babysitters watch us. I remember very few
occasions that we were not with them.

Family was
very important. We went everywhere together. We sat down every night for dinner
together and to this day we go to my parents and sit down for meals together.

As my dad
was growing up, his parents took them on family vacations and that was very
important to my dad. There is maybe one year growing up that I can remember not
going a family vacation. Those are very sweet memories I have of my parents and
my siblings.

We still
travel together, now it is just a larger group since all my siblings and I are
married and have kids. There have been years that friends and extended family
have even vacationed with us and we have had fantastic groups of 21 people. It
has been so much fun.

When my
husband talked to my dad about marrying me, some of his fatherly advice was to make
sure to take your family on vacation. There is nothing like escaping your daily
life and just having a great time together as a family. It is time well
treasured.

Four weeks
before I got married my father had a tear in his intestines and became toxic.
He was very ill and spent a lot of time in the hospital. While in the hospital
he got blood clots and his life was threatened again.

Every time I
would visit him in the hospital he would be working so hard walking up and down
the halls because he wanted to come home and he wanted to be able to walk me
down the aisle. I remember visiting him and he said I am trying to get strong so
I can be strong for your wedding.

My father is
strong, genuine, honest, self-sacrificing, generous, hard-working, supportive, funny, caring, and
passionate about life. We have never left his house without him walking us out and waving good-bye.

The greatest
gift my father’s love has given me is helping me know the love my Heavenly
Father. Because of my father I can understand my Heavenly Father’s unconditional
love. I can understand my Heavenly Father’s sacrificial love. I can understand
my Heavenly Father’s unending love.

When I sit down
and read my Bible and read the life of Christ, I can believe Christ would do
what it takes to keep a relationship with me. I can believe God left his
heavenly splendor to sacrifice His life so that I could gain mine.

Christ is
real to me because the love I experienced in my own father. 1 John 4:19 says: We
love because He first loved us. God chooses to love us. It is not
anything that we did or could do.

Growing up,
I was always proud to be a part of my family. Most people didn’t know my name
but they knew whose kid I was. They knew what family I belonged to because of
the love of a mother and the love of a father.

As much as
my parents have lavished love upon us there is no greater love than that of our
Heavenly Father. I have been fortunate to have a little taste of heaven because
I have amazing parents.

1 John 3:1 says, See what kind of love the Father has given to us,
that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the
world does not know us is that it did not know him.

1 John 3:1
tells us the kind of love our Father has lavished on us is one of honor. It is
beyond a love that we have ever known. Nothing could be greater than being
called children of God.

I am honored
to be the daughter of a carpenter and I am eternally grateful to be The Carpenter’s
daughter.

Please SHARE in comments below about your father. I can’t wait to hear your stories.

If you missed the posts for Father’s Day read more at A Life Like His and Men Like Him

The post The Carpenter’s Daughter appeared first on Seeking God with Jaime Wiebel.

Men Like Him

Jaime Wiebel — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

For the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation. Psalm 100:5

In preparation for writing this, I thought about the stories I could tell and what I would say to honor a man that not only fought for our country and our freedom but survived so many things to live, in my eyes, a successful life.

Often times, when I think about either of my grandpa’s, both WWII veterans, I think about such a rich historical perspective they had. I think about our Sovereign God who has the big picture on life and how he delivered both of them out of the trenches of war to continue their legacies through their families. God is so good.

If you had a family member or friend who served our country in a war make sure to thank them today if you can. Because of what they did we can continue to enjoy the freedom that we have. Make sure to thank God for his hand on their safety and leading them home to carry on your family tree.

My grandparents had six children and seventeen grandchildren. Our holidays were very fun. We spent birthdays and holidays together and they were such a happy tradition for me growing up. I can’t imagine them any other way. Our holidays actually got so large because some of those seventeen grandchildren began having children and holidays grew to epic proportions.

My grandpa, my paternal grandpa, was 93 when he passed away 4 years ago. He was an amazing grandpa who stood about five feet tall but was never short on telling us how much he loved us.

In fact, one day I walked into his house and I said, “Hi grandpa” and he looked at me and said, “I love you and don’t you let anyone tell you anything different.” We were surely loved and he wanted us to know.

He was the sort of grandpa who always smiled when you walked in the door. He always called us kids “peach” and he always needed a hug. When the great-grandchildren would come over he would say, “You watch out boy, you get any closer and I’ll squeeze your gizzard out.”

To my grandpa family was everything and you could not spend time with my grandpa without laughing.

My grandpa told such fantastic stories and when I would go to visit I hoped he would tell my favorite story again. Although there were so many.

My grandpa served in the Army. He was stationed in Australia, where he met and married my grandma. He fought in many battles, including the Battle of Buna along the Kokoda Trail.

I heard many war stories and now wish that I would have had it recorded or written down. I think it was just a part of his coping but you never left his house without hearing a story or ten.

I cannot imagine what it be like to be in a war or what it would be like walking through the jungle just trying to fight so you could survive. I am so grateful for his service. I cannot imagine having to live a life after having seen the images of war up close.

The most precious story that I have of my grandpa is from June 1, 2007. The tornado sirens went off. I was teaching and remember my students asking me if this was a real tornado and I said, “It could be but as long as I have lived here I have never seen a tornado.”

Moments later, I got a phone call from my sister saying a tornado had hit my parents’ house, my grandparents’ house and my aunts’ houses. (They all live on the same block.)

Leaving school I tried rushing home to my then 5-month-old because I was told the tornado hit close to my house. Every attempt to get home was blocked by trees and debris. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Anyone who has seen the damage of a tornado knows it is like a war zone. Everything in its path destroyed.

I finally made it home and eventually to my parents’ house and could not believe my eyes. The trees were all down. A limb stuck through their roof, windows were broken out, their garages were in ruins.

I looked over at my grandpa’s house next door and his barn that had been there since my dad was a kid was off its foundation. My grandpa’s yard was covered in trees, he had a few broken things on his house and there he sat on his front porch solemnly looking at all the damage.

I went over to check on him and he just stared at the damage and said, “I have never seen anything like this in my life.” I asked him if he needed me to get him anything. He just looked out at his yard as if all else faded away and said, “Honey, can you go and pick up my flag.” I couldn’t believe my ears. Everything that was going on around him and he couldn’t stand to see his flag lying in the dirt, lying in the debris.

I immediately went out and picked it up, shook it off and handed it to him. He said, “Oh thanks so much, honey.”

When my grandpa passed away. He had a military funeral. You can imagine how precious and honoring it was the moment the military men removed the flag from my grandpa’s casket, gently folded it, placed it into the hands of my father, and stood to salute the life of a fellow soldier.

The flag meant so much to him. It symbolized a country he fought for. It symbolized thoughts and memories he never seemed to be able to escape. It symbolized a freedom he fought for. It was something he honored and was proud to fly.

My grandpa was a great man. He was a great American. Men like him are the amazing heritage that is our countries history and backbone. As I think of my grandpa, the tears run down my face. He is truly missed. I am honored to be his granddaughter. I am honored in all that he did for me, our family, and our country.

When you fly your flag remember the men and women that have fought for you to fly that flag and to fly it freely.

In the words of my grandpa, take your time going but hurry back.

Please share stories in the comments of your grandpa. I look forward to reading them.

To Read Last week’s blog from my Father’s Day tribute Read A Life Like His

I hope you stop back next week as I conclude with my story about my father called, A Carpenter’s Daughter.

The post Men Like Him appeared first on Seeking God with Jaime Wiebel.