A new book by John Abild
Essays from the Empty Nest
What do you do when your nine children have all grown and flown the coop? After decades of training, nurturing, and encouraging them, the fatherly “juices” want to keep flowing to them. What can be done? Daddyvotionals!
This book is not just another collection of Christian devotionals, as you might suspect from the title. Rather, it is a suite of essays I gave my children after they left home! These are not “kiddie” sermons but are grownup messages to my sons and daughters from their devoted daddy. Some are testimonies of what God has done for us; others are meant to exhort or encourage; a few are deeply theological; and some are really funny!
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The Story of Daddyvotionals
Hi, I’m John Abild, the author of Daddyvotionals. Thanks for stopping in and for your interest.
You may be wondering where such a strange title came from—Daddyvotionals—so I’ll take a moment to explain.
We have had children living in our home for 45 years! Yes, from the time my wife and I started having babies until the last one moved out, four and a half decades passed. While they were home, we would have evening bible story book readings or short sermons that I would prepare. It was part of our bedtime routine.
When the seven girls and two boys started leaving the nest years ago, I still had a longing to feed them in a spiritual way as I had done all of their younger lives; the creative ideas didn’t stop flowing in my mind. I continued to come up with things I wanted to share with them, so I began to send them emails periodically with a variety of themes, the writings found in these pages. I didn’t think I was writing a book—I was simply continuing to communicate my care and love. Somehow it turned into a book, after all!
In these pages you’ll read about our faith honeymoon trip in which we didn’t have enough money to go but went anyway; you’ll be exhorted to overcome selfishness; you’ll read several imagined interviews with folks in heaven and hell in Interviews from the Other Side; you may chuckle at the Solomon Scenarios, envisioning life with 1000 women; you’ll discover how elderly Agnes became instantly young again; and you’ll hear about the day God gave me five vivid answers to prayer.
“ Daddyvotionals is a delightful collection penned from the heart of a loving, concerned father intended to guide, cheer, bless and instruct his children through life’s journey—even after they move out of the home. This is a unique window of opportunity to see how a responsible Christian father teaches his children through obeying God’s command to ‘train up a child in the way he should go.’ I would highly recommend buying and carefully reading this book. ”
John Solinger M.Div., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
About the author
John Abild
John moved from his home state of Connecticut to Winona Lake, Indiana in 1973. He thought he would be employed there only for the summer at a nationally known photography school. However, Jesus Christ gave him a new birth that summer so John decided to stay in Indiana, where he met his wife, Yvette. They eventually moved to Kentucky in 1991 where they completed their family of nine children. He embraced a career in furniture restoration at that time which continues today. The Abilds reside in an empty nest near Shelbyville, Kentucky.