YOUR DAD................................................................

From the time a girl is little, she usually has fun playing house and thinking of being a mother..... sometimes there is a father figure  if she has brothers or boys to play with also.  But she concentrates on being a mother and taking care of her baby dolls.  Then as she grows older and into her teens, she still probably thinks into the future and wonders when her Prince Charming will come riding along.  As she grows older yet and goes out into the world of college, she wonders if she will recognize him when he appears.   I was no different from most girls and had those dreams and thoughts as I grew up and headed for college. 

My last year in High School was in the States and my parents were in PA for that year so I lived with them.  There was a fellow - older than I - who had a crush on me, and I avoided him at all costs. I could not stand him, and he was constantly wanting me to date him.  My mother was a close friend of his mother and she tried to tell me what a nice young man he was.  He actually was very weird - I still think so. I remember at Easter that year he bought me a beautiful orchid corsage and had it sent to the house.  It was a cold Easter and I put the box with the corsage outside the front door hoping it would freeze overnight.  My Dad had also gotten me a rose corsage which I wore Easter morning - and with much coaxing on the part of my mother, I wore the orchid to church that night (the frost did not kill it!), making a joke about who had given it to me.  (I know - very immature, but then I was only sixteen!)  

That summer my folks sailed off to Africa and I was driven by my people I lived with to Houghton College.  Now a whole new world of young friends opened up before me - both girls and men.  I certainly did not date widely and wildly, but I did date a few guys.  For the most part we hung out together, guys and girls.  As the year progressed, I was singled out by one fellow and we dated regularly and were tagged as a couple.  He was tall, a good family, a gentleman, I liked him.  But I certainly did not love him as he wanted me to love him. He gave me a beautiful gold ring with a ruby red stone.  That ring too has a tale to tell - I never wore it after we broke up but I did keep the ring in a jewelry box.  Years later in Burkina, we had a houseboy who was stealing us blind, and that ring was one of the prizes he took from our household, along with a lot of more valuable things! 

That lasted into my Sophomore year, and suddenly I had to break off that relationship and hung around mostly with a gang of guys and girls.  Having a couple more serious relationships in there during the rest of my time at Houghton.  But I graduated from Houghton College and arrived at Nyack College, footloose and fancy free, as they say.

But that did not last long, as it was the first of November when I first dated Dad.  You all remember the story of how he asked someone else out on the phone. thinking he was talking to me and the girl accepted the date. (That all got straightened out finally and we did have a real date in New York City.)  Dad had his own car, he was an older and more settled student,  a totally different type from anyone I had been attracted to before that. 

Dad had grown up in a totally different culture and family from mine.  He had dated in his high school years I guess - I think I only remember one girl he mentioned.  There was also a nurse (and student) at Nyack who had a real crush on him and thought God was leading them together.  But that didn't go anywhere either.  We were both older, and neither of us dated anyone else once we started to go out together.  Our friends - both his and mine - thought we were made for each other - and as it turned out they were right.  We have had a long, happy marriage, beautifully adorned by all of you children and the spouses you have brought into the family and all the beautiful grandchildren you have given us, as well as darling Levi, our one great-grand. 

Dad's father died soon after we started dating, so he went home for that.  Then a bit later he invited me and another couple (close friends of ours) to go to his home in Connecticut for a weekend.  I was very impressed with his beautiful home and how important the Pierce family was in that little town of Brooklyn.  Grandma Pierce and I always hit it off together - she liked me from the beginning and I was happy about that. I don't think I have written about a funny thing that happened on that visit. Dad said something at the table, and he was sitting beside me, and  I poked his leg for some reason, and hit my hand on something hard in his pocket.  Later I found out that that had been the ring  he had bought to give me and he had brought it to show his mother! It was in a little box, and that is what my hand hit! 

My parents came up to Nyack to visit for a weekend and were staying in a missionary apartment. I found out later that Dad had gone down to see them and tell them he wanted to ask their daughter to marry him.  They were so excited, but did not spill the beans to me.  They did take me out to buy me a new dress, and I wondered why they were doing that, but found out later they wanted me to have something new to wear for my engagement! 

From the beginning of our relationship, I always admired so many things in Dad. He was settled and polite, he made friends easily - everyone liked him, and I felt like the luckiest girl in the world that he also loved me. He was (and is) steadfast, loves the Lord, is generous, he thinks of others, and he likes to help those less fortunate than he. He also has a great sense of humor.

There are many love languages and Dad's and mine are so difference.  His love language is to do things for me, to give me gifts.  My love language is being affectionate and using words.  But we learned to respond to each other's ways of expressing our love for each other.  Someone in our church calls us the "newly weds" - somehow he thinks we act as if we are really in love with each other after all these years. And that is true! You are so lucky to have such a father, caring and honest and loving. And together we are so lucky to have all of you as our children.  You too have imported wonderful individuals into our lives through your spouses, and have vastly enriched our lives through your beautiful children.  We see so many families torn apart these days - even people in the church.  And we are so thankful to have such a well coordinated fanily, living for the Lord and for each other.  Indeed we are blessed,  and Dad gets much of the credit for his love and steadiness through the years.  Thank you for blessing us!  May your tribe increase!!