Belated Father's Day Tribute

One thing I ask from the Lord,

this only do I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

to gaze on the beauty of the Lord

and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27: 4

My Dad had a very distinctive voice. It was the type of voice that made most people afraid.  Even grown men stood a little straighter when they were in the presence of my Dad...now, when he spoke to them, you could see them shifting their weight to stand in attention almost as if a General were addressing them.  At home, he could make the walls tremble when he raised his voice...as well as the nerves of everyone inside the house.  But I loved his voice and I would give anything to hear him again. 

Sigh...

Reading this verse brought memories of my Dad's voice...I could almost hear him...

In my mind I see him holding a Bible, standing at the threshold of our house reading with all the thunder of his powerful projection to a crowd who dared not utter even a whisper:

y habitaré en la casa del Señor por años sin término.

The closing words of Psalm 23 spoken out of the lips of my Father every December, few days before Christmas, as the Posadas made a stop at our house.  Traditionally, a couple of weeks before Christmas, our neighborhood had Posadas, which is Spanish culture's special way of doing caroling.  All the kids and many parents from our neighborhood would visit about 5 homes every evening until each home was touched by the cheerful singers armed with tambourines and castanets.  Once the group would get to a house, there would be a sing-and-response between the group outside the door and those inside the house.  This was done to commemorate Mary and Joseph looking for an Inn in Bethlehem.  Once the door opened, the leader of the Posada would hand the leader of the household a Bible to read Psalm 23.

That was my Dad's role.

Reading, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, in Psalm 27 brought me back to those days of my youth because the words echo the las words in Psalm 23: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.  And the echo of my Father's voice reading that line comes to me from the distance...

Now that I am as old as my Dad was when the memories of him reading those verses are the most vivid in my mind, I pray he is, indeed, living in the house of the Lord for years without end...waiting for me...so I can hear him again.

May the Lord guide us in our path so we seek Him above all else, because when we seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him in the fullness of His glory.  In the Precious Name of Jesus.  Amen!