Two Gifts for Your Children

Share Now

My Daddy was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 9, 1931. I have one of his hand-crocheted little booties in a shadow box frame in our living room. Today, on his birthday, I am grateful for the memory of a loving father. I know this is a blessing that not everyone has and I do not take this blessing for granted.

These are my Daddy’s parents. As the oldest of eight grandchildren, I was the first to get to call them Mama Sue and Daddy Leland.

Here is Daddy with his mother and with her mother, Mama Head.

And here is Daddy with his Mama and Daddy.

This picture shows one of the most pronounced characteristics of Daddy’s life. He loved children. Here he is with his siblings, Dorothy Sue on the right, Ronnie on the left, and Mary Ann in his arms.

Sadly Mary Ann died while having surgery for a cleft palette. She was two years old. Soon after she died, Mama Sue sent Daddy to the store to buy something they needed. Daddy came home with Christmas lights. I think he was trying to bring light to his heartbroken family.

A few years later, Mama Sue and Daddy Leland welcomed another baby girl, my Aunt Emily Camille, just eighteen months older than I. Daddy was crazy about his little sister.

He was also crazy about his own baby girl and crazy about my mother, too.

Three years after I was born, my family welcomed my brother Steve and our family was complete . . .

. . . until Steve and I married and had families of our own. Then Daddy was crazy about his grandchildren, too. I already knew it was true, but it was so comforting when, in 2003, people at the funeral home told me, “Your Daddy sure was crazy about his children and grandchildren.”

If you only had two gifts you could ever give your children, I recommend:

• Bringing them to Jesus and
• Being crazy about them and their kids.

That’s what my Daddy gave to me.

And they were bringing even their babies to Him
so that He would touch them,
but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them.
But Jesus called for them, saying,
“Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them,
for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
Luke 18:15-16

Share Now