More From Tracy Crump

A few weeks ago, we attended my husband’s 50-year high school reunion. On the way to the event, Stan said, “Let’s drive through my old neighborhood.”

We cruised the narrow midtown streets, lined with cars and still vibrant with life. Stan pointed out one house. “That’s where I lived during grade school. Next door was my friend Rickey’s house.”

We drove by several more homes, including the one where Stan lived when I met him in high school, and then he stopped in front of a small one-story. “That was Mr. Reeves’s house.”

Mr. Reeves. The subject of my meditation and owner of the old Model A Ford. I could almost hear the put-put screech! put-put screech! as Mr. Reeves tested the brakes on his classic motorcar.

Stan’s father passed away suddenly when Stan was just a baby. His mother never remarried, but many men exerted a godly influence over her son’s life. While in junior high Stan threw a paper route, and Mr. Reeves was one of his customers. During the summers, Stan mowed Mr. Reeves’s lawn. Mr. Reeves often invited him onto the porch to listen to the Cardinals baseball game on an old radio he set up on the windowsill. They lounged under the ceiling fan talking about school, about baseball, and about life in general. To some extent, Mr. Reeves was one of several father figures for Stan, inspiring him to become the wonderful father and grandfather he is today.

Mr. Reeves and the other men who helped guide and mold Stan as a young child modeled the ultimate Father to my fatherless husband. For that, I will always be grateful.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. — Psalm 68:5 (NIV)