“Sit still!” boomed the very familiar baritone voice in my mind as I awoke from a sound sleep. Since my father’s passing, it is only possible to hear that voice now in my dreams. With those words came a flood of my earliest childhood memories along with feelings of being safe and secure, taken care of by my mom and dad. With my dad it seemed all things were possible and I was sure that he hung the moon.

That command and that voice took me back to two and a half years of age. My parents had decided I would ride in my dad’s truck as he worked, so that my mother could take a Christmas job. When Christmas came and my mother’s job had ended I told them I wanted to go with Daddy. It seemed to work out for all of us, so I was allowed to continue traveling with my father.

About the time of my birth some dramatic things had happened in our family. My dad and his partner owned a successful business based in Salem, Oregon, setting power lines throughout the Pacific Northwest, employing about 10 men. Unfortunately for my dad, the government cancelled their contracts at the same time his partner ran off with the company funds to South America. It was one of the lowest points of my father’s life, betrayed by his partner and friend, the company he had built gone, great debt amassed and a family to provide for.

Left with an old Army Surplus Dodge Power Wagon, a strong able body and the ability to sell, my dad found creative ways to support us. He traveled around the countryside picking up scrap metal and reselling it. He also would go very early in the morning to pick up boxes or sacks of produce – apples, potatoes, onions – and peddle them to grocery stores and restaurants. My siblings told me stories of living on potato soup and apple everything one winter. But I was not poor, I was with my dad.

My father never knew a stranger and in my early years he introduced me to everyone we met. During peddling times, we would go into restaurants – diners – and he would order milk for me and a cup of coffee for himself. By the time I had finished my milk he would have usually sold some of our produce.

When he had to leave me in the cab of the truck, especially when he would load the scrap metal, he would give me one command that was always obeyed, “Sit Still!” As I heard and felt the thuds of those “rear ends” (rear axles and batteries) being tossed into the back of the truck, I knew it was for my protection and my provision that I sit still.

On days when I saw that we were doing well, I would ask my dad, “Is it a hamburger and French fry day?” Many days were “cheese and apple days,” but some days were “hamburger and French fry days” that doubled as a selling opportunity to the diner where we ate. And once in a great while it was a “chicken dinner day!”

As we traveled the countryside we would play games like counting or alphabet games. As a kind of game, my dad would ask me, “Whose little girl are you?” He would always answer his own question and the answer was always the same, “You are MY little girl!”

When I was a teen, my dad taught me to shoot with his .22 rifle. Though I became a good shot I did not want to kill anything, but I loved to accompany him when he hunted. Since my eyes were better than his by that time, I could usually spot the game seconds before he could. He would look for signs of deer and he would once again tell me, “Sit still” and we would wait. But instead of the command of my early years, this was more of an invitation – to observe and watch with him as the game was provided.

My dad’s debts weighed heavily upon his mind. When I was grown, he told me it took him 20 years, but he did pay off his debts and then he smiled. Over time he had not forgotten his debt, but he no longer focused on it. Instead he focused on what he could build and figured out a way to build it and along the way he accomplished many things.

In times of insecurity, financial or otherwise, it seems to me that the first question we should ask ourselves is, “Whose child am I?” Our Father says we were bought with a price, the very highest price, the blood of His only begotten Son, slain before the foundation of the world – for us. Through Christ, our Father always answers that question the same, “You are MY child!”

Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:7-11: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks him for fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?” Whatever our problem or need, we would be wise to take our Father-God at His Word and talk to Him - ask, seek, knock.

When we ask, we do not know if it will be a “cheese and apple day,” a “hamburger and French fry day,” or even a “chicken dinner day,” but we do know our Father has promised to give us good gifts and never evil. With our Father all things are possible and He DID hang the moon!

Ask and “Sit still,” my friends. “Sit still.”