Father’s Day

Our Father Values His Children

KARI STAINBACK|GUEST This morning a nest of baby finches on my patio exploded with activity. Wild finches love to nest on my third-floor patio behind my wall lamp. I assume they see it as a safe place to start off their family, out of sight and away from so many natural dangers. I hear the baby birds' squeaky chirps and the joyful songs of their mom and dad sing as they happily share the responsibility of feeding these tiny babies. How amazing that the finches know just where to build a secure nest to establish their offspring. Each parent cares for and warms the eggs until the baby birds hatch. They both know just what to feed the little ones so that, in two weeks or so, they will be ready to leave the nest and learn to fly. But for those two weeks, referred to as the “fledgling stage” the baby birds still depend on their parents to provide for them. No doubt, Jesus also observed this amazing creation phenomenon with birds knowing that His Father, the God of all Creation, wisely made the birds with this innate wisdom to procreate and provide for their young so well. After all, the Father is the first cause, the Provider for these birds in season and out of season. Jesus spoke of this in Matthew 6:26-27: Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?...

Our Father Values His ChildrenChristina Fox2025-06-02T18:02:37+00:00

The Greatest Father

KATIE POLSKI | CONTRIBUTOR I had a good dad growing up. He was a little quirky, but he was a good dad. He often brought a smile to the mundane and laughter into hardship. One day, while in the middle of cancer treatments, dad called me into his room because he had something “really important” he wanted to tell me. My stomach turned; I didn’t want to have “the talk” that I felt like was inevitable when someone was facing a dire illness. I walked into his room with my shoulders stooped and sat down next to his recliner. He leaned forward and said, “Guess what? I pulled the ‘cancer card’ for the first time. And it worked!” What my father simply could not wait to tell me was that he got out of a speeding ticket because he told the cop, in what I imagined was a dramatically strained voice, “I have cancer.” Definitely a little quirky, but he was a good dad. The Imperfect Love of Our Earthly Fathers While I had a good father, he wasn’t perfect. No one single father is. And while I imagine many share my gratitude for having a loving dad, there are many who did not experience this kind of care. There are sons and daughters who did not feel loved because of a dad who was absent. There are grown children who are working through the emotional pain from abuse. There are others who never really knew their father because work took priority over family. I have wept with these friends, reflected with them, and mourned over their scars. Father’s Day carries an array of emotions for children who grew up in all different circumstances. The temptation, no matter what the experience, is to compare our earthly father with our heavenly One. But believer in Christ, there is no comparison. Whether we celebrate good dads this Father’s Day, or mourn broken relationships, there is hope in a Father who loves perfectly and completely, and this heavenly Father calls you His child...

The Greatest FatherChristina Fox2024-05-31T15:54:50+00:00

We Always Have A Father to Celebrate on Father’s Day

SHEA PATRICK|CONTRIBUTOR As I work on this blog post, Mother’s Day just past. I saw many things on social media celebrating mothers, but also saw the mixed feelings the holiday brings about. I imagine many people have a similar feeling about Father’s Day. A group of my friends and I no longer have fathers here on earth and we often discuss how difficult the day is for us. What do we do with these mixed feelings? Get angry at those who are celebrating? Blast our frustration with God’s plan for us on social media? In contrast, the death of my father is one of those milestone moments in my walk with God— an Ebeneezer reminder of how God cared for me when my dad died. A Hard Grief I still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the phone call came. My dad was dead at sixty. He had just retired eight months before and moved into his dream house with my mom. I just could not believe that it was true. I was in shock. I think the entire first year I lived in disbelief. All the firsts came and went – Father’s Day and his birthday. I also had a one-year-old who turned two six months later—another first where I felt the absence of my dad profoundly. The second year was the hardest for me by far. I think it took the first year for me to really understand the reality of my loss, for my dad’s death to sink in. I often woke in the middle of the night from terrible dreams, only to realize the loss of my dad wasn’t a nightmare; it was all too real. I spent those nights crying out to the Lord in desperate prayer. Every time I was at my parents’ house, I expected him to come around the corner. It was painfully hard to adjust to life without him here. But it was during this period that I really began to understand God as my Father as he showed his fatherly care for me...

We Always Have A Father to Celebrate on Father’s DayChristina Fox2023-08-15T13:22:39+00:00

A Father With No Regrets

BARBARANNE KELLY|CONTRIBUTOR My husband is a strong man. But, as our five children well know, he’s also a sentimental softie when we reach certain milestones. With each graduation, each moving out, and each wedding, there comes a moment when Jim will cry. Whether it be a speech or a toast or a quiet moment hugging goodbye, their big, strong father will break down in tears. This spring and summer, our youngest child graduated from college, will move to Austin to begin his new job, and marry his childhood sweetheart. It’s the Great Sentimental Milestone Trifecta. We’ll need tissues. Lots of them. Jim’s tears spring from a deep well of love for our children. There are, however, tributaries of regret which flow through his heart. Opportunities missed, unfulfilled plans, whispers of inadequacy—did he do enough? Did he prepare them to go out and live in this world? Indeed, can any earthly father do enough? Among the many word-pictures in scripture given to us to help us understand God, “Father” stands out. The first person of the Godhead isn't only the Father to Christ, his eternal Son, but throughout scripture he calls himself Father to those he draws to himself, his adopted children. Through the prophet Hosea, God speaks these sweetly paternal words to Israel: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. . . . . it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, . . . . I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. (Hosea 11:1, 3, 4) A Father With No Regrets Even though no earthly father can live up to the perfections of our heavenly Father, we still recognize in these tender passages the heart that beats in the chest of so many fathers we know and love. The imperfect love of our fathers points us to the perfect love of our heavenly Father, who will never weep for opportunities missed or hold regrets that he didn’t do enough for his beloved children...

A Father With No RegretsChristina Fox2023-03-24T18:19:20+00:00

On Father’s Day and Making Crumbs

“Dee-lightful,” he exclaims in his best Julia Child impression. “Simply delightful! Now, see if you can make it even messier.” It’s my husband, David, currently swathed in a makeshift apron of discarded curtain fabric the girls have tied over his work clothes—slightly too tight and definitely too short. “More crumbs! Let’s make more crumbs! Your mother will be so pleased!” he shouts to his very charmed and giggly audience. “More mess! More mess!” (Thank goodness they’re only pretending…it was just Mother’s Day, after all.) Making crumbs is just one of the games David has invented with our girls, but it’s at the top of my favorites. Ever a sucker for a great analogy, this one doesn’t disappoint. David and the bitties can pretend all they want that they are “trashing mama’s kitchen” out of its reasonably clean state (it is still quarantine, after all…) but I see the reality. The crumbs aren’t imaginary. They are very, very real and very, very delicious. David leaves crumbs of godliness, and his girls and I snack them right on up. Sure, it seems an appropriate time to spout some kind words about my husband (it is almost Father’s Day, after all…) but truth is these words aren’t ultimately about David, but rather about the God he loves and serves—the God that has made my husband into the man he is and is transforming him into Christlikeness more and more, day by day. For David uniquely reveals and represents Jesus in such a way that I hope anyone finding themselves three hundred words into this article alongside me today might be spurred as I am. Like me, I hope you will be spurred toward humility and kindness all because of the ways David reflects Jesus....

On Father’s Day and Making CrumbsChristina Fox2022-05-05T00:36:38+00:00