The core essence of Father's Day is fatherhood. That's obvious and sort of goes without stating. Apart from children there would be no fathers, and without fathers there would be no children. But sadly there are children once from fathers that are now fatherless. And also, sadly, there are fathers once with children that are now childless altogether. Both are a travesty and a tragedy of unfathomable proportion. For my children such is not the case. And for me? Neither does it apply. These are gifts to us that are well beyond any of our own doing, and these are also mercies to us far beyond our deserving.
This paradigm about the grace and mercy of fatherhood is not shared by all, I know. In fact, I'm one that frequently takes it for granted myself. I too often assume upon my own father, and even my children (and Victoria and my mother for that matter) that they're there, and that I'm no different than anyone else in the world living in the surrounds of love from above, beyond, within and below. It would be impossible to be always cognizant of those realities. But what really makes those realities a reality is their absence. Then the subconscious rises to the conscious and you miss what you don't have because the once having is now gone. That happens with permanence when we lose someone forever - they're no longer physically present, the comfort that they were once here if even only at a distance. That also happens when they're temporarily gone, hoping in the back of our minds that we'll one day be reunited, if just only for a moment. I, like most of us, have experienced both continuums, with the later being preferable because hope still remains.
But, what if you're among the fatherless that never knew their father? Or, what if you're among the childless because you never had a child but desired one, or worse yet, lost the child you once had? Where's the hope then? I'm afraid that's the plight of far too many to comprehend... hopelessness beyond hopelessness. The thought almost brings me to tears just typing this. But what should bring me to tears even more is the fatherless estate of us all, the reality that all are wayward prodigals, running away without ever being consciously aware that we had a Father in the first place, all along and from the beginning. Yet He desires that we be reunited, and not just for a moment, but forever. It's there that all hopelessness is dashed, and the culmination of all those conscious and subconscious desires to experience what it truly means to be a part of a family are realized once and for all. That day is one day coming for me, I'm confident beyond hope.
I experienced a small foretaste of that heavenly hope this Father's Day when for the first time Victoria and I were reunited with all our children from all over the world under one roof at one time. Austin and Meagan were in from Colorado, Annie was home from college, Barret's on summer break, and all three of our appointed children from China were secure in a home they can now call theirs. We've longed for that day for a long time, and it made my Father's Day a perfectly complete Father's Day. And someday I will be as they were that day, a child under the banner of a Father's Day beyond any Father's Day, when Jesus calls all who bow to Him now to enter into His eternal rest.Now, finally, we can change the picture header of this blog (as soon as someone shows us how) with a glimpse toward fulfillment, serving as a reminder of what's yet to come.
A father under the Father,
