“THANKS BE TO GOD FOR DADS!”
Dear Friends in Christ:
The month of June brings the annual celebration of Father’s Day on The third Sunday, June 17th! Over the years, i’ve read and heard many wonderful tributes to fathers. This week I came across the following article in which a son tells about his father who retired at the age of sixty-four. The son wanted to buy his Dad something to thank him for all his hard work and sacrifice. As he shopped, however, he realized there was nothing he could buy that could thank him enough. His father had taught him through his own hard work and faith in God that the greatest gifts come from the heart and not the store. So, that night, he sat down and wrote a list of “Thank You’s” to his father for all he had done for him. He left it on the kitchen table for his Dad to read before he went to work on Friday before Father’s Day. This is what it said:
“THANK YOU, DAD!”
- For waking up every morning when it was still dark outside and going to work, while we slept in our warm beds.
- For wearing that ugly paper tie I made you in first grade.
- For teaching me how to pray.
- For coming to all my Little League games and for keeping quiet when others wouldn’t.
- For loving my mother with all your heart.
- For teaching me I can never say “please” and “thank you” too often.
- For taking me out for ice cream the night I struck out with the tying run on third.
- For giving me a hug when I badly needed one.
- For building that voice inside me that said “no” when I was tempted to get in a car after I had been drinking.
- For helping me buy my first car.
- For being a wonderful grandfather.
- For telling me it’s okay to cry.
- For being my hero, for being my friend.
- Being a loving father does not come naturally. It is hard work. It means ignoring your own needs at times so that you can focus your attention on the needs of others.
Someone once said that it is a parent’s calling to reflect ”Christ-like love” to their children. This love says: “I love you for being you—not for your achievements; not for being an honor student; not for being outstanding in sports. I love you without reservation simply and solely because you are my child!” This is the love that we all receive from God through Jesus Christ, and this is the love that we are asked by God to give to not only our children, but to everyone. As a father, and now a grandfather, these words of St. Paul have always been instructive to my relationship with our daughters and grandchildren:
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a… “love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant. It does not insist on it’s own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
Galatians 5:22-23 “...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
For this Father’s Day, our new Evangelical Lutheran Worship book contains a very appropriate prayer:
“Gracious God, whose will it is that humans live in community, bless family life everywhere and fill all homes with respect, joy, laughter, and prayer. Strengthen the commitment of husbands and wives to one another, that they may mirror your covenant faithfulness; pour out your Spirit on parents, that through them their children may taste your unconditional love; and empower all family members to live in your grace and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!
—Pastor David Fetter
