Andrew recently asked to join the Stillwater Symposia ---just in time for me to post a poem for his Confirmation Sunday! My poem reflects on his chosen bible verse for the day. It's John 11:26, one of several he memorized this year, and I am thrilled that he picked this one because it invites him to answer a question. My prayer today is that he will keep accepting the invitation and answering the question, over and over, with a quiet yes!
"Whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
With this, Andrew, and with my poem in the next post, you are also invited to the blog!
Welcome, Andrew Joseph, godson, nephew, cousin and brother, fellow Christian sojourner,
ReplyDeleteI've regularly reflected since I was about your age about the gracious fact that God had granted me two fathers in Joseph Vold and Donald Lamken. The latter, as your own father can attest, adopted not only Uncle Joshua and myself. I was suddenly fatherless in 1991, and then God provided another father in Grandpa Dick. We should never take our parents for granted, and as Jesus affirms in the Gospel of John 14:18, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."
Today, Andrew, I want you to not only feel invited (as you always have been), I want you to know that you've had--as I have realized anew today--a heavenly Father and earthly father bar none. Your dad has taught us poetry, patience, all the stuff paternity should maintain. You will be a father, too, one day. Always remember the fathers that provide for your confirmation today.