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It was summer of 1970.
I was in a place called Crowell, Texas--
backside of nowhere really--
I was out actually preaching a youth revival
when my brother called.
He said, Jack, you need to come to Fort Worth,
our dad's been hurt.
He said, he's been hit with a hammer.
I can remember the night that he died, and literally the
last time I walked in to see him and gripped his hand,
asked him to squeeze my hand, it was a moment.
There's a sense in which you think that your father is
going to be there forever, and I believe every man, young
boy, believes their father is indestructible.
And that's the way I felt about my dad.
He squeezed my hand ever so faintly.
and I can't help but say, that when I walked out of there I
thought, that's the last time I'm going to see him alive.
My story really is the Happy Days, growing up in the 50's and
60's in Arkansas then in Texas.
Those were the days of black-and-white television,
and Ozzie and Harriet, and Leave It to Beaver families,
well that was our family, really.
My dad was a good, strong dad, and I spent a lot of
time with my dad.
We had a little drive-in called the Dandy Dog in a
little, small town in Arkansas.
And I spent lots of hours running around his apron
strings there at that drive-in.
My dad was a Christian man.
Led us to church, I mean, it wasn't dad dropping us off to
church and going somewhere else.
He closed down his drive-in on Sunday so that we weren't
working on Sunday, we were in church.
My dad was always proud of me, he never missed a ball game,
he never was too tired to play catch.
And never seemed to get upset if I was
hanging out at his workplace.
So, he really was my dad, but he was also a
great, great friend.
I'm really thankful that I had the dad that God gave me.
I came to Fort Worth, Texas as a young man, as a teenager, we
moved over here.
I got all caught up in this youth ministry, this movement,
really, that was happening.
In the late 60's, the Jesus movement was connecting from
California.
And in the midst of all of that--
with student camps, youth camps, and mission trips--
I began to sense God calling me.
It was a compelling, it's hard to describe.
But it's just a sense of, if I don't do this
I'm going to die.
If I don't do what I sense God is calling me to do, then I'm
going to miss the reason that I'm here.
It was summer of 1970.
That was 38 years ago, and I was out actually preaching a
youth revival when my brother called.
So, I was in the pulpit doing what God had called me to do
and excited to do it.
But never imagining that our whole family was about to be
thrown headfirst into one of the greatest
trials of our lives.
My dad had a hardware store, he worked for Buddy's Hardware
in Fort Worth.
Shoplifter came in and ended up with a hammer in his hand
and bludgeoned my father in the parking lot.
My father lived for ten days.
We waited and waited, praying each day
that he would recover.
He never regained consciousness.
After ten days he did pass away and went on to heaven.
Went down to the little chapel of Harris hospital, walked in
there by myself late, late in the evening.
And I can tell you this, that I sensed the presence of God
in that room like few other times in my life.
In the darkness of that night and incredible loss of that
moment, and just the traumatic experience of my dad being
murdered, and now we're the victims of violent crime.
And all this happiness and growing up, now just
everything caves in.
Obviously, my mother's devastated, we're all
devastated.
And yet in that room that night, the spirit of God dealt
with me in a very powerful way.
I became extremely committed to lighting a light in the
world in the midst of darkness.
And the man who killed my father was 24 years of age,
why the anger, why the rage in his life?
I had to learn lessons of forgiveness.
When you are a victim of someone else's violence, you
learn to deal with your feelings and emotions on that.
And I did.
I refuse to be resentful, or bitter, or angry.
It's a terrible thing to lose your father.
I can say that my father having left in this way--
the wound of that, the grief of that, the hurt of that--
God heals.
I believe what happened that evening, when my father died,
is I truly surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus in my life.
And allowed Him, His rightful place of preeminence and power
in my life.
And as a young minister, that's an important life
lesson to learn.
And that it's not about me, it's not about my ministry,
it's not being professional, it was an important lesson for
me to learn.
And that's always been the desire in my life, that people
would see Jesus in my life and ministry.
And the only way that can happen I know, is for Him to
be first. For me to get out of the way, and to let Him have
His rightful place in my life.
I'm Jack Graham and I am Second.