In 1955 Richard L. Evans, the announcer and writer of the Spoken Word for more than four decades, dedicated a book of his messages with these words: “To Alice and our four sons, who have helped to make life sweetly cherished, always—and forever.”¹ Richard L. Evans was known throughout the world not only as a broadcaster and writer but also as a church leader and president of the exceptional community-service organization Rotary International. He truly spent his life going about doing good.
Through it all, he always remembered something that too many people never come to realize—that his most valued contribution, his most important commitment, was to his family. Over 50 years ago on this broadcast, he said:
“Much of life is made up of things we think we will one day do: of things we postpone, of things we set aside, of things we leave too late. And one of the things we could best determine to do this day, would be for fathers and sons (and daughters) to draw a little nearer, to come a little closer—to take a little more time for a closer kind of companionship with those who mean the most.
“Too many of us wait too long for the cherished times together, for the intimate outings, for the quiet hours of an evening, for the fuller talking out of personal problems with the close confidence of an understanding heart. It is not so much the sending; it is not so much the preaching of the precepts; it is not altogether, even, the providing—but the going with, the doing with, the being with that brings a closer kind of kinship.”²
Time marches on for each of us—especially, it seems, for parents. The children whom we love with all our hearts are too soon grown and gone. But it’s not too late. We can begin today to build a closer relationship with those who are our greatest treasures.
Program #4059
¹From the Crossroads (1955), 5.
²From the Crossroads, 121. ©1955. Used by permission of the Richard L. Evans family.