Father's Day

This Sunday is Father’s Day.  As holidays go, it is a bit underrated.  Much more money and effort is spent in celebrating Mother’s Day, and there is nothing wrong with that.  Still, we need to see the importance of this day.

            Billy Sunday, the baseball player turned evangelist once said, “Give a child a good mother, and any old stick will do for a father.” On the other hand, Billy Graham said, “I believe that fathers may be the most underrated and unappreciated persons living today.”

            I know that I am grateful to have grown up in the home of a Christian man.  My dad taught me all of the things a dad should teach his son.  I have learned from him how to throw and hit a ball, how to tie a hook on a line, how to drive a stick shift, and even how to memorize long passages of writing.

But there are many other things he taught me that are even more valuable, and some came quite late in life. I was 46 when my mom got sick, and I watched my dad keep his wedding vows to her, caring for her to the very end. I’ve watched his interaction with grandchildren, and now great grandchildren, and I have a better plan for how to love my own.

He continues to teach me today.  He is showing me how to grow old, and then to die gracefully.  He has been on hospice care for longer than expected, and we know the day is coming, but until it does he continues to live.  He recently told me that he was enjoying life, though it is filled with pain and a dependence on others that is difficult for him. 

I have two fathers, one earthly, and one heavenly, who have given me more than I deserve, and for that I am grateful.  I hope that, in some small ways, I can live up to the standards that have been placed before me.