My father and I were very different, and often at odds. It took me decades to learn that a father’s love is a hard love, because a father is rarely understood by his son until the son too is a father. So often a child sees no further than a father’s discipline. But ask around: Fathers want to be loved, and too often they’re lonely.
My wife and I have been blessed with a marriage of fifty-five years. I’m the father of four and grandfather of eleven these days. Our middle son, John, is a civil engineer now with his own beautiful family. But we too were very different, and often at odds. I couldn’t sell water in a desert. John could sell sand in a desert and leave his customers laughing. Here’s the irony: John and my own dad would have been thick as thieves. Children and their grandfathers share some secret; some sameness or bond of understanding that fathers, because of the responsibilities they carry, just never figure out.
But I think God made it this way for a reason. The role of the father is to give; and through that giving to overcome, little by little, the selfishness and ingratitude that come so easily to every child. That’s the kind of father God is to all of us. That’s the kind of father God put into my own life. So while it’s decades late to say it, though it’s overdue and not enough, I’ll say it anyway: Thanks, Dad.
