Dad

Last week on Thursday I got home just before 10pm from the Life Group and Team Leader’s Banquet (having arrived at the church at 7.15am) to find a letter waiting for me. The writing on the envelope was hand writing I didn’t recognise and it was addressed to Rev. Ian Phillips c/o Crawley Baptist Church. That’s a worrying sign. Mostly when I get letters like that, it’s a letter about how upset someone is with something I said, or didn’t say, or did, or didn’t do. And I do get letters like that. From Christians. Not often, but I do get them. So it was with great reluctance that I opened the letter. As I began reading, the words seemed to confirm what I was thinking: “You may not remember us, but we remember you!” Oh great! Here we go. Someone I probably don’t remember who’s angry at me for something I won’t remember! But I read on. And I looked to the bottom of the letter to see who was writing. That’s when it all changed. I won’t use their names here, but I instantly recognised the names of the people writing to me. It turns out I knew them, or more accurately they knew me nearly 6o years ago when I was but a baby! They were in the church in Norwich in which my dad was the curate. I have no idea when I last saw them, but it must have been around 50 years ago when they came to visit my mum in Wimborne. I remember playing cards with them and having a right laugh. I think, although I may be wrong, they were in the youth group my dad led. As I read on, they had written to me because they have been watching the livestream services for the past year or so when unable to attend their own church through illness! I rushed to read the letter to Lisa, but hadn’t read it through and I suddenly hit a bit that made me stop. They wrote about how watching me on the live stream reminded them of my dad! I wasn’t ready for that. My dad died 53 years ago tomorrow (1st July 1970) at the age of 35. I never got the opportunity to know him. I don’t really remember anything about him. And there cannot be many people who would be able to tell me that the way I do things on a Sunday morning are like the way my dad would have done them. There are very few people who could say to me: “Ian, you are just like your dad!” When I told Meg and Zac about the letter, Zac asked: “Is that the first time you’ve every heard someone say that?” I think it was. I wrote them an email after the service on Sunday, having said hello to them at the beginning of the service, and in the reply I got this morning, they said that the way I spoke about how to pronounce Wymondham, was exactly the way my dad would have done it! This week I’ve been thinking about my dad more than I usually do and wondering about how I might be like him which, until now, I’ve never really done. I’m really grateful that someone wrote to me and told me about how I remind them of my dad. Which has got me thinking: about another “dad” I want to be like. And how lovely it would be if someone said that when watching me they could see a likeness to him. After all, isn’t that the reason Jesus came a lived in front of us? Not so much that he would get us into heaven, but that we would live like him and show his Father’s love in the way that we do that? I think so. Maybe it would be good to thank those people who have done that for us - lived in front of us in a way that has showed us what our heavenly father is like, who have their Father’s likeness.