Honoring Our Fathers
This Father’s Day is about honoring the men in our lives that play a crucial and very needed role. Our husbands help shape our little girls into beautiful women who receive a love that respects themselves and others. They help mold our daughters into being nurturers of purity and honor. They help raise children who are confident in the plans the Lord has for them.
Our husbands shape our little boys into becoming men that we’ve prayed for through the example they set. Strong and steadfast. Our fathers are protectors of our homes, beings, and emotions. They are supporters of the dreams we chase after. They are the beings that allow us to better understand the character of our Heavenly Father.
When thinking about Father’s Day, I find myself moved by the goodness of Jesus. I am overwhelmed in the way He collects and brings us all close to His heart as His children. His tender mercies and sacrificial love are something I lean into time and time again. The beauty of Jesus’s nature and role in our lives is unmatched.
Regardless of what your relationship looks like with the earthly father figures in your life, whether we have an existent or nonexistent connection to our earthly fathers, we have a good father that is with us and for us. Jesus became for all of us the perfect father who becomes the healer of our pain and redeemer of our stories.
Growing up, I only had a fatherly figure step into my life at the age of 12. God brought redemption into my life when my stepfather entered in. Jesus started to show me His love through my stepfather which brought much healing to the pain I had experienced growing up without a father present. My father loved me and took care of me as if I was truly his own. I was able to receive love, support, and closeness in new ways! The dynamic of my family changed in the most beautiful way. I started to understand the importance of fatherhood and the gift it truly is.
Oftentimes, we tend to roll right into Father’s Day. It may come as a last-minute scurry to buy flowers or a small gift. We may feel like we could never amount to expressing our gratitude towards the men in our lives that have taken up this role as a father. With Father’s Day approaching, may we trade our fast-paced days for a day where we slow down to honor and express our gratitude/respect for the men that surround us. The father figures we have in our lives are meant to be honored and appreciated every day. This Father’s Day, we want to be intentional in celebrating the men that have been a part of our lives. For the fathers that have been there for the small victories, the failures, the ones who have picked us up when we’ve fallen weak, wiped our tears away and those that have helped us laugh through the many seasons of life.
Our fathers and husbands are men who have gone through life knowing that they have the capability and expectation of being responsible. Responsible for their finances, home, career. Responsible for honoring their wives, loving their family, and remaining faithful to the covenant made when they said their “I dos”. They then entered into a season of carrying the responsibility and the beautiful title of a father. With little to no foreknowledge of what it meant to be a father, they entered through the doors of fatherhood.
The moments leading up to meeting the ones that made them the fathers they are today, something shifted. Their hearts became soft and their love gentle for the ones that made possible for them to become fathers. They came into a state of confrontation where they were able to finally see themselves step into the call of fatherhood.
With this calling, they also began to understand the call to self-denial, sacrificial love, and taking on a humble heart and mind. Our fathers learned about the importance of a selfless heart that is required when denying themselves out of a place of love for those he has been entrusted with.
This Father’s day, we recognize the strong men that have been father figures to us. To our biological fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers, uncles, and all others that have stepped into our lives. We acknowledge their sacrificial love, their selfless hearts, their hardworking hands, and we express our gratitude towards them. Today and everyday, we honor the fathers that surround us and have been the men to bind our hearts closer to our heavenly father.
So may this Father’s Day be one of celebration. Whether we gift them with sweet goodies or set our tables with delicious food or offer up a wholesome gathering to honor the men that surround you! Whatever your celebration looks like on this wonderful day, may it be a day where you honor them in word and deed. May everyday be a day where we never take for granted the men that cover us and stand by our sides.