Dad loved to work. One of his frustrations in the last year was the loss of the strength to work. He knew well how to delegate, having raised seven children on a farm, but now he guarded the tasks he was still able to do, such as moving the folding chairs from the car trunk to the house, and expressly asked that I not help.

Then came the life-altering stroke in early August and his disabilities multiplied. He lost his driver’s license, the ability to handle the family finances and the ability to find his way around the main floor of the simply bungalow he had lived in for 25 years – and that he had designed and built.

One question on my mind was: How will Dad handle this? Will he become angry, or more frustrated? Will he become impatient with Mom, who now has to care for him in his disability?

But Dad defied my fears. He became more kind, gentle, gracious, conversant – and lonely for heaven. “I’m looking forward to what the Lord has in store,” he said.

In preparation for Mom’s and Dad’s 60th wedding anniversary celebration, my brother asked Dad to prepare reflections on his life and their marriage in the context of Scripture meaningful to him.

Later Dad told him that he was preparing his comments in the context of a word.

When I arrived for the celebration on Oct. 26, I asked Dad, “What’s the word?”

“Satisfied,” he replied. “It’s based on Psalm 16 and 17. My thinking arose out of family devotions. David had a close relationship with God. He needed God, and found God was always faithful.” Then Dad quoted Psalm 17:15 “I am satisfied when I awake in the presence of thy likeness.” Dad continued, “David had a lot of enemies, and therefore needed God as a refuge. He needed a daily contact with God.”

When I read Psalm 16-17 from the point of view of an 86 year old man robbed of his independence, I understood. These verses were helping Dad figure out how to get ready for heaven.

Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge (16:1). Enduring a stroke – now that’s scary. But Dad was at peace. “I’m ready to go,” he said in the hospital after his October 31 heart attack.

Apart from you I have no good thing (16:2). Dad knew where his faith for salvation lay, and where significance is found.

The…lines have fallen for me in pleasant places (16:6) – and this from a man who had for the last 30 years lived in the prison of hearing loss that left him unable to understand at gatherings of his noisy offspring, and unable to function effectively at the church committee work that he so loved. He chose the path of gratitude in the midst of loss.

Though you test me, you will find nothing; I have resolved that my mouth will not sin (17:3). The faith community where he had worshipped since 1937 was undergoing massive change that he did not understand, formally closing before his eyes to become part of a multi-site contemporary worship-format congregation. Dad chose the path of grace, capped by a wide-ranging prayer of thanksgiving and blessing at the closing service less than two weeks before his death. He was resolved that God’s testing would find no trace of bitterness, anger or any other sin at the moment of death. “I guess it’s time for the old people to get out of the way,” he said to me in late July.

Hide me…from my mortal enemies who surround me (17:8-9). What’s all this talk about enemies? And then, as I was taking Dad’s clothes to the undertaker, it hit me. Dad’s mortal enemy was mortality. Old age. It had stolen the independence that is the farmer’s hallmark. But old age, by robbing Dad of so much, had simply motivated him to focus on getting ready for heaven. Dad was a disciplined man. When the fields were ready for seeding, so was his seeding equipment. He built his own homes and farm buildings, while getting the farming done as well. I believe that now he used his disability and the words of Psalm 16 and 17 to focus his mind to prepare for heaven. And he found freedom from his mortal enemy, first by concentrating on heaven, and then on December 31 by going there!

And I-in righteousness I will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness. (17:15). Dad, you finished well.