Quitting

The sound of the doorbell startled me. When I opened the door, the man asked for Wayne. Before I answered him, the man asked if I knew him. He had a familiar smile, but his face was aged and different. And the voice……..the voice was familiar too. For the next few seconds my brain tried to match a name with the kind face and his recognizable voice.

Before I could make the match, he told me who he was. I was glad to see him and especially happy that he came by to see Daddy.

Daddy would have been thrilled for the visit. The man was shocked and saddened to hear that Wayne, my dad, had passed away. After he gave his condolences, we caught up.

It was a strange mixture of emotions…….remembering what was, learning what is, and trying to summarize thirty years of life in thirty minutes or so.

Then he asked the most amazing question. “Did your dad ever stop drinking?”

Oh how I wish he’d have known the man that Dad had become. The gracious man that cared for Mom so tenderly while working his job from his home office. The man that overflowed with generosity…….with his time and resources. The man that forgave so easily because he knew he’d been forgiven so much.

Daddy stopped drinking in 1990 or so. Never took another drink.

He quit to save his life.

His quitting saved our lives.

And who knows what else his quitting did. Whatever it did, it was good and right.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.          

                            1 Corinthians 15:10