He's 89.
He's virtually blind.
He's hard of hearing.
He is very weak. He walks very slowly with a zimmer frame, but his knees keep giving way and he ends up in hospital form falls. He now has NHS nurses coming to the house to dress him and bathe him - which is a great relief to my Mum who has her own weakness and health problems, but is a great loss of dinity for him.
He spends increasing amounts of time asleep. With his mouth open. My Mum keeps thinking he has died.
The kindest thing would be for that to be true - to pass in his sleep from weakness and blindness into the dazzling blaze of glory with a new young fit body and many many crowns for his hard service to the Lord.
I am increasingly divergent from the narrow theology he taught me as a child. But I owe to him my excellent childhood and upbringing, my values, my personality, my preaching gift, and above all my faith.
See not the frail old man - see the mighty hero of the faith, and salute him.
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