Happy Father's Day

~Published in the Charleston Gazette on Father's Day - June 17, 2012~

Father's Day is an occasion to mark and celebrate the contribution your father has made to your life. Whether he is still with you or has already passed, whether you are young or old, I’m sure you have wonderful memories of your father.

I am happy to honor the memory of my father. He was one in a million! In my earliest memories, my father was always there – always smiling – a happy man.

I was an “only” child – and the apple of my father’s eye!

But a good father knows that he must model his parenting after God. He knows that the way he rears his children will have a direct effect on how the children view their Heavenly Father. If a father is overly strict, then his children will grow up viewing God as a harsh and judging God, but if he does not discipline at all then they will think God allows anything.

My father loved me but he disciplined me, too. And he started when I was very young. At only four years old, it seems I was misbehaving while we were visiting my grandparents. My father kept telling me to stop what I was doing but I ignored him repeatedly. Finally, he told me to sit on an ottoman nearby. I sat - bouncing back up shortly. My father pointed his finger and said firmly, “Sit down!” I did, but only a few seconds passed before I jumped up again. This time, he showed me he meant business by giving me a couple of rather hard thumps on the behind. Tearing up, I sat again, but in a few minutes, I bounced back up like a rubber ball. This time, my dad grabbed me by the arm, whacked my behind again and said, “I told you to sit down, young lady!” Sobbing and rubbing my derriere, I proclaimed, “Daddy, I can’t sit down!”

When laughter erupted throughout the room, the punishment was all over, but I never forgot the incident and was a little quicker to obey him after that painful episode.

As I grew up, my father was an integral part of my life.

He worked shift work making it easier for him to do the things for me that my mother’s eight to four job prevented her from doing. Therefore, I enjoyed some quality time with my father that others may not have had the good fortune to do with theirs.

When I came down with a cold or sore throat and had to stay in bed for a day or two, everything else stopped for my dad. He watched over me diligently, keeping a large glass of fruit juice over crushed ice beside my bed from early morning until I went to sleep at night. He sat beside my bed reading to me or just keeping me company. To this day, many decades later, when I’m ill, I revisit the memories – and yearn for my father’s pampering.

Besides obeying our Father in heaven, there is no responsibility more important for a father than providing the necessities for his family. But my father provided so much more than basic needs.

His continual good humor was contagious and the love he had for God and his family overflowed onto almost everyone he met.

He often quoted, Hebrews 13:2: Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

My father didn’t have to tell me how to live my life. I learned from watching him.

Happy Father’s Day!