{"id":812,"date":"2008-04-23T23:46:35","date_gmt":"2008-04-23T23:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2008\/04\/the_father_in_l.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:45:30","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:45:30","slug":"the_father_in_l","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2008\/04\/the_father_in_l.shtml","title":{"rendered":"The Father In Law I Never Knew"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span>
\nIt’s interesting how you get to see other sides of people at their funerals. Folks talk of their memories and you get to share in snippets of their lives that you weren’t privy to before. Why do people tend to wait to do that until after they’re gone? These two images of Maria’s father struck me as two images showing sides of the guy I never knew.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/span>When I first met him, he was in his early 60’s, so in my mind he was always an older man and grey haired. The picture of this dashing man in his 30’s, with the jet black hair and that pencil thin mustache caught me by surprise.
\nBut the Robert Steeves I really wished I had known was the one in the top picture. The man standing in the prison corridor, Bible in hand. This is the minister who ran a prison ministry for 4 or 5 years in the 80’s, who had an unrealized dream of a place for prisoner’s families to stay when visiting. The man who opened his own home to a few of those families. I see a man with a vision, a passion and a ministry of his own.
\nBut the man I knew didn’t go to church regularly anymore. Oh, his faith was still real, I don’t question that, but I wonder why the passion that would lead a man to preach in a prison wasn’t there any more. He was no longer engaged in ministry the way I see him here.
\nI wonder what happened to that passion. Was it just the toils of aging that took it away? Was he burned out taking care of those in society who most would rather ignore? Was there no one else to share his passion and hold up his hands as he got weary? I’ll never know and I never had, or took I guess, the opportunity to ask.
\nOne thing I did know is his concern for his daughters’ welfare. Each and every time we visited, from that first trip when we were either dating or engaged, as we were prepared to leave he’d shake my hand and tell me “You take good care of her now.” This was no parting pleasantry, it was said with authority. Maybe it’s just a trick of memory, but I remember those first few times before he really knew me, he wasn’t about to release my hand until he had an acceptable answer of “I will”. It was a serious question and it made an impression on me as a young man. I got the impression that there would be consequences if I failed.
\nEven as the years passed and he knew me better (and our daughters were born), each parting was still the same. “Take care of those girls” he’d say. The edge of his words were softened, but the seriousness was still there.
\nLast Wednesday, as we left Moberly MO, I felt a pang of sadness as there was no reminder to take care of these girls. But don’t worry Dad, I will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s interesting how you get to see other sides of people at their funerals. Folks talk of their memories and you get to share in snippets of their lives thatRead More The Father In Law I Never Knew<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Father In Law I Never Knew - salguod.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2008\/04\/the_father_in_l.shtml\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Father In Law I Never Knew - salguod.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s interesting how you get to see other sides of people at their funerals. 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Jesus was. Luke 15:4 - Put it in perspective: The sheep were their livelihood. A loss of one is a loss of 1% of their livelihood. What if I lost 1% of my earning capability?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Quiet Time Journal"","block_context":{"text":"Quiet Time Journal","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/quiet-time-journal"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":768,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2008\/01\/luke_10.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":812,"position":1},"title":"Luke 10","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"January 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Luke 10:1 - He sent them out ahead, when he was about to go. A bit like John the baptist, preparing the way for him. 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Of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Quiet Time Journal"","block_context":{"text":"Quiet Time Journal","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/quiet-time-journal"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":310,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/04\/the_upper_room.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":812,"position":4},"title":"The Upper Room","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"April 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Matthew 26:20-35, Mark 14:17-28, Luke 22:14-39, John 13:1-38, 14:1-31 Luke 22:19-20 - Growing up in a Presbyterian church, each time we took communion the pastor would recite these verses or something very similar. 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He rode up, asked if Brandon was a gang member and when he said \"No.\" and started to walk away, he was shot.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family and Friends"","block_context":{"text":"Family and Friends","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/family-and-friends"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1468,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions\/1468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}