One Proud Dad

[gaaspul]

My computer crashed over the weekend and while restoring my backed up data I came across this letter I wrote about three years ago. Even reading it again today made me proud. My son just turned 12 last week and is quite an inspiration to all who meet him. I hope you enjoy this. (sorry if this is the wrong forum...if it is, admin, please move to the correct one.)


Today is October 1st. My family and I have just returned from a nice dinner and as I sit here writing this letter tonight, I am one of the proudest men in the world. You see my 9-year old son, Austin, broke his fast tonight. Why would that make a dad proud? Let me tell you the story.

In October of last year the church we were attending went into a month of prayer and fasting. At the end of every service our Pastor would ask for a show of hands of who would be fasting for the coming three to four days. One morning Austin asked my wife if children were allowed to fast. She said, “of course they are. Why are you asking?” Austin told her that he noticed that none of the children raised their hands to volunteer for a fast day but stated that he would like to.

My wife told him that would be great and spoke to him to make sure he understood what fasting was and what it meant. When he acknowledged that he understood he told her that he probably couldn’t perform a complete fast but that he wanted to fast from his favorite food, pizza. What he said next amazed my wife. My, then eight-year-old, son told her that he wanted to fast for one whole year.

You have to know Austin’s love for pizza to understand this sacrifice. After encouraging him to just go as long as he could, and preparing herself to help him in case he could not perform the task, Austin set out on his commitment. Everywhere he went people ate pizza. One of our family’s favorite restaurants was a pizza place. Friends would invite us out to eat and of course we would end up eatting pizza. Austin would normally order chicken fingers.

One of the most touching moments for me came in February of this year. It was the night before we left California to move to Florida. We were loading the moving truck, all of our dishes were packed and only a few groceries remained to be packed. My wife had run an errand and I was left with the kids. It was dinner time and since there were no dishes to eat on I naturally called Dominos and ordered pizza…not thinking. When the pizza arrived I turned to see Austin staring at me…with big “puppy-dog” eyes. My heart sank.

As I apologized he asked me, “Dad, do you think God would mind if I had just one little piece?” I tried to neither encourage nor discourage him from changing his mind, I simply told him that God would honor whatever he had done and to do whatever he felt was right. He turned away, went to a box and picked up a container of Top Raman noodles. He brought them to me to heat up and while we sat at the table eating pizza, Austin ate his noodles.

The temptations continued after we moved to our new house. Right after Austin started his new school they had a party and served pizza…his Sunday School class had a pizza party…everywhere he turned pizza was being served. Through it all, my son stood firm and tall…he would not eat pizza. He honored his vow to God and tonight finally sat down to his first piece of pizza in a year. Of course we bought him his own.

You see, what makes this story a little more special is that Austin has Cerebral Palsy. He is a special child to start. He inspires everyone who meets him. At church you will find him on the front row worshipping God with all his heart and soul. If it’s Sunday morning and he hears worship going on, he’s ready for class to be over so he can get out and worship God with everyone else. He is truly an amazing young man, who’s goal in life is to be a preacher, and we are expecting great things for him.