Mom & Dad          

Victory By Faith                                              Clik on pic to enlarge                        The Giles Family Photo Pages

    It's a couple of days till fathers day 2004 and I was just sitting and thinking about my dad. I got to thinking- why do we wait till the people we love are gone to think to thank them and tell them how much we appreciate them? So here is my tribute to my mom and dad ( while they are still very much with us ) First I would have to say thanks dad for not "killing" me when I was a teenager and I was putting the whole family through sooo much anguish. I believe Gordon Lambert could have gotten you off for "justifiable homicide" and thanks mom for believing and confessing the best because you believed I was a "good" boy even when I wasn't. I am so grateful and thankful for godly parents that took me to church. I may have strayed far, rebelled big, and spent too much of my youth far from God, but the scripture proves true that "if you train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it." I'll never depart again.

   My dad Robert arthur Giles sr. is not what you would call a talker. he is what you would call a doer. somebody once said "those who can "do" those who can't teach." James 2:18 says... show me thy faith without thy works and I will show you my faith by my works... and since faith worketh by love I don't think it is a stretch to apply the same principle to love. Dad is a man who shows his love by his works. Most of the time when I say to my lovely wife, "honey I love you" she reciprocates with "I love you too" On occasion if she feels perhaps I am not doing 110% of my work load, I say " I love you" she says, "show me." In other words talks cheap show me some actions!  Now of course as a child I thought like a child. I thought money grew on trees or something; I thought if you didn't have the money for something you just wrote a check. I did on occasion visit the shop where dad worked which had no air conditioning and all the men were soaked with sweat and stinky and I wondered why dad wanted to spend all day there every day instead of playing some ball with me: never realizing that was what he had to do to keep moving us to larger houses within walking distance of school, with a little privacy from our siblings; to feed us well, clothe us well, keep us well stocked with balls, gloves, and about whatever other toys we could imagine to put on our Christmas list. My dad showed his love for us by being an excellent provider. Not until I grew up and worked at the shop myself and brought home the check and "paid the bills and bought gloves that got left out in the rain" did I realize how much dad loved me. An old German proverb says "We grow too soon old und too late shmart." After work, all summer long ( and summers were much longer then ) he umpired baseball two, three, or more nights a week for years. I sure didn't think he loved me much if he called me out at the plate on a close call! but even then he was showing me how important truth, honesty, and integrity were. He didn't sit around and tell me about these values he lived them in front of me. And most of all he showed me faithfulness. I have never known a man more faithful to his church or to his family.

   What can I say about Mary K.? the original and greatest do girl ever known. She has reached 80 years young and is mad as a hornet that she has had to slow down to somewhere around the speed of sound! I think she used to travel near the speed of light! If she ever tells you that she never exceeded the speed limit, after losing track of the time at the country club, and rushing home to get dads dinner on the table at 12:10 sharp you just nod and say O.K. Mary K.  ( she may have fallen victim to what the late nazi leader goebbels said; "If you tell a lie long enough it becomes the truth") Actually she probably never thought that was speeding, after all that dinner had to be there at that time! mom took, and takes, duty and responsibility very seriously. So much so that she probably did a little too much for us instead of making sure we did our chores right She just had too much to do to wait and watch etc. till we got it right. I'm sure Bob jr, Linda, and Ellen will say she may have spoiled you Jimmy but not us! I cannot imagine a person ( man or woman ) on earth that ever wanted more to see her kids happy and blessed than my mom.

   Actually whether they were aware of it or not at the time, I believe the greatest gift of love my parents ever gave to me was their faith in the Lord Jesus and their prayers. I was in high school during the muscle car days and easy availability of alcohol to teenagers, and it is a miracle of answered prayer that I survived my rebellious years to grow smart enough to return to the God of my father, and mother! Thanks mom and dad for your great love and many prayers and don't stop praying for me now. Love Jimmy

   Now there abideth Faith, Hope, and love but the greatest of these is love