The pictures that accompany this story are here just to prove that my children didn’t get all of their athletic genes from their mother. Fathers Day is always a time for thanksgiving for me. My own father was a tremendous example to me and I love him very much. His faithfulness to God and my mother, his love for God’s Word, and his steady, calm determination never failed him in over 50 years of ministry through good times and bad. As great of a father as he was, he has been an even more devoted grandfather to my children and my two nieces.
Father’s Day also holds some tremendous memories for me. 25 years ago this Tuesday, June 18, 1988, was the Saturday before Fathers Day. Shelley woke me up very early, saying that she had a back ache and that she thought that she might be in labor. Only a few hours later, Robert Martin Hughes, made his way into the world. What an amazing Fathers Day present!
From the very beginning, Bobby had a sweet, compliant temperament. He was and continues to be a good-natured, compassionate, and fun-loving person.
His very first word was ‘Ball,’ and much of his life has been driven by his love for sports of every kind, but he also caught a passion for missions and for serving the Lord very early on.
I can remember a conversation before he was even a teenager where we discussed his plans for the future. He had determined that he was going to play in the NBA, mind you this was before he grew nine inches in his sophomore and junior years of high school. He was going to live in the small Amish town of Goshen, Indiana, and give most of his multi-million dollar salary to support missionaries around the world.
Since then, he has had the opportunity to play four years of college basketball and go on multiple missions trips to the Philippines, and these days his goals have changed.
Now he looks forward to the day when he and his wife, Ariel, can serve the Lord, first-hand as missionaries. Until then, he is using the skills that God has given him to open the doors of witness to college kids in the Dallas Metroplex.
So you see, I have been doubly blessed. As a son, I have witnessed the life-long example of a great father, and as a father, God has blessed me with a son, who seeks to follow not me, but God. You just can’t be more blessed than that.
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