Emphasis Preaching Journal

My father's dad was rather a failure. He could speak little English; and even that with a thick German accent. He never tried to improve his speech. He had a humble job as a plasterer. He never made it big. But perhaps worst of all were his self-destructive tendencies of excessive drinking and compulsive gambling. Finally his marriage was severed and he left, never to see any of his children for forty or fifty years. He died more or less alone, strangely brought back to the same nursing home where his earlier-abandoned wife also died.