17-20 June every year are most consequential and emotional days in my life! Each June 17th I reflect back to June 17, 1967, at Dak To Green Beret camp in Vietnam. An enemy battalion, after ambushing two of our patrols miles west of our camp, was moving toward us. I was ordered by my detachment commander to be ready for evacuation at 9:30 AM that Saturday morning. I was a military intelligence officer under cover as an infantry officer with an assumed name. I missed that flight because at 4:30 AM, when the fast-moving enemy unit mortared our camp, I was wounded to the extent that I had both legs below the knees amputated. Miraculously, my Father in Heaven saved me on that battlefield through two Green Beret combat medics, who treated me. Otherwise I would have died and never been able to be a father to my loved two daughters. I wrote them yesterday that "To be their father was reason enough to be saved that day so many decades ago!"
Coincident always in this time frame is Father's Day and my 81st birthday is June 20. Obviously, a special time of year always! Both my daughters called me this morning and others messaged me to have a Happy Father's Day. But, really most significant in my life is wrapped up in the fateful day in 1967, which we combatants, who suffer serious wounds, term our "Alive Day." I woke up yesterday praising my Father in Heaven, who allowed me to continue with life and breath itself.
Linda and I had an extraordinary time of prayer and conversation this morning. Actually for the first time ever I focused on gratitude that the Ultimate Father is He in Heaven above. Secular Father's Day is the focus culturally, partially focused as always commercially on gifts, etc. But, today I focused on Him, the Father of Jesus the Christ, and Creator of all in Heaven and this earth below.
My favorite dictionary is the 1828 original Noah Webster American Dictionary of the English Language. In looking up "ultimate" Webster wrote "The ultimate end of our actions should be the glory of God, or the display of his exalted excellence. The ultimate end and aim of men is to be happy, and to attain to this end, we must yield that obedience which will honor the law and character of God." A life in obedience to the Father yields many "Alive Days" in life and the ultimate gift of life after death.
