MY FATHER'S GIFT

 

One cannot help but reflect on fathers on Father's Day.....my father gave me a priceless gift. He gave me the Gospel.

When he was just a youth growing up in a poor peasant household in the tiny republic of Croatia, my father rejected the expected role of the oldest son to remain on family land to inherit it along with care of his parents. He chose instead a trade at the expense of his father's displeasure and rejection....a trade which enabled our family to move to a city life when I was 3. This heroic move of my father's led him to seek a better life for his children.....a path which brought me and my sister to a land of more opportunity, Australia. Had my father not been brave enough to forsake the poor life of peasantry, I would most likely be there still. 

I am convinced that my father was spiritually led to bring me to a country where I could receive the greatest opportunity of all: the opportunity to seek eternal life through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is here that in my youth, I joined the Church and found Him who has given me salvation and given my life true meaning.

I have reflected recently on my forefathers, the ones that gave me my Israelite, Croatian roots and my heart is filled with love and gratitude this day for these men who I barely know. May we be grateful for the ancestors we hail from and whose earthly marks we bear. They are more a part of us and our lives than we realise......I offer my gratitude for my forefathers' personal sacrifices and the lives that they led so that I could be......until we meet at Jesus's feet.

Your life has come and gone

But your footprints remain

And your blood courses through my veins.

I know your smile and your frown

Though we have never met,

They are worn by my children

As gems in family diadem;

You are the root

That reaches the branches,

I am the stem that paves the way.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN