THREE SCORE AND TEN

My dad turns seventy today. He has been thinking about this day for so long because the Bible says that three score and ten (seventy years) is how long we can expect to live on this earth. So dad has been marking his days off the calendar and anything after this he says will just be bonus days. I pray the Lord gives us thirty more years with dad because he is seriously one of the most unique and most hilarious people I have ever been around. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't pick up the phone and call him. This man can tell stories that will have you rolling in the floor. Get him and Jason together and it's TOO MUCH. One of my favorite things is when Chris gets to hang out with dad and Jay. He laughs until he cries and I love it. This is why others' perception of him is hard for me. They don't know him the way I do.

See, dad doesn't do anything half way. Never has. Mom said when he was doing karate, she would be holding boards for him to karate chop at two in the morning. Same way with his health. Over the top. Vitamins, flax seed, green smoothies...I can still remember as a child seeing him with that nasty green stuff dripping from his mustache. Sheww. AND he is a RUNNER, SO FIT. Needless to say, his ministry is the same way. He is NOT luke warm. No way. He is ON FIRE for God.

And whenever I meet someone new, it is always interesting to see what their reaction is to the news: yeah, those are my parents that own Tops & Bottoms....or sometimes i will just say I WORK at Tops & Bottoms....that's when it can REALLY get interesting (if they don't know exactly who I am). One time when Jillian was just a baby, I was at the doctors office with her. As we sat in the waiting room, a lady started chatting with me. She was so sweet and had the cutest baby. It all went downhill fast when I told her where I worked.

Oh, I don't shop there anymore. Me and my moms group from the library decided to just boycott them. Yep, we will not patronize such a place. THAT MAN, I'm sure you know him...it's just not right what he does putting up those HELL signs and ABORTION signs. Just so hateful and judgmental. NO OFFENSE, she says. It's not YOUR fault or anything. And I'm a Christian. And we Christians are supposed to LOVE and those signs are just HATEFUL, don't you think? Thats what me and my moms group decided. No more shoes from there. We will drive to the mall if we have to. I'm just SO SICK OF THOSE SIGNS! I won't even look when I drive by. I just ignore them now. And it's hard because they are SO BIG.

Big gulp, fighting back tears, ANXIETY kicking in full force (you see why I stay HOME!?!?). I guess the Lord put the words in my mouth and helped me fight the tears. I calmly told her THAT MAN was my daddy. Things got real awkward...she looked nervous, too. Then I just told her how much my dad loves people and how he wakes up and goes to bed with a burden for the unsaved. And he is really really nice. And he just wants to do whatever he can to keep people out of hell. Because it is a real place. Hell. You know, H-E-L-L. And abortion, you know, that's a BABY. A B-A-B-Y!!! So I go on and on and on (imagine that) about how my dad is so great and loving and blah blah blah blah blah. She wasn't convinced. At all. And she had a little smirk.  Finally, "Jillian Kent, come on back"....shewwwww. At last.

Oh, the day a of the changeable billboard! Those days are no more, stating the obvious....those days of the IN-YO-FACE-YOU-BETTA-REPENT-RIGHT-NOW and the HELL-IS-REALLY-REALLY-HOT kinda signs, those days have passed. Those days of slamming on your breaks and doing a double take because of the words you just read on that big yellow sign. And TRUST ME, dad got an ear-full from me about many of those sign messages. EAR. FULL. It was always funny because he would fax them over to me for "approval". I would gripe and gripe, suggest a more easy-to-swallow version of the same. He never ever ever changed them. You know, its hard to argue with someone who has spent HOURS in prayer over a message. He sort of already knows what he's gotta say. In hindsight, I think it was more of "heads-up" fax rather than an "approval/review" fax. Like Joelle, honey, prepare thyself...since you are going to actually be there. You know, when people get mad. And call. And STOP BY THE STORE for an unfriendly chat and a door slam.

But here's the best part: I know of AT LEAST one mommy who chose NOT to abort her baby after reading a big yellow sign on her way to Walmart. So there is a child, maybe four or five years old, maybe attending preschool or Kindergarten..that is HERE, that is ALIVE because God used a big yellow sign for GOOD (even though it annoyed the crap out of so many people, even Christians). So IN YOUR FACE, mr. devil! Glory be to GOD.

I pray that everyone reading this blog believes that the Bible is true and has accepted Jesus into their hearts because, guess what!?! Heaven IS For Real (awesome book) but so is HELL. However, no one should have to worry about that horrible place. We can all be in heaven together for eternity. God provided the way to get there and it's Jesus and He loves us sooo much. Where would we be without the promise of heaven? What a depressing life that would be!