Fatherhood

June 16, 2019

It had been a great afternoon and evening, waterskiing, swimming, bonfire on the beach, and i was finally time to head home. When I got to the car and boat trailer, ‘I felt the color draining from my face; something wasn’t quite right. I was sure I had locked the car, but the back door to the station wagon was ajar, and my father’s toolbox was gone—a wonderful day suddenly spoiled. The wagon was full of my teenage friends, but I  drove home in silence, dropping them off one by one till there was only me.

Facing the music is never as much fun as making it, and tonight was no exception. I didn’t know what to expect; my father was not one given to temper, but I had never lost a few hundred dollars worth of his tools before. It was late, but like always, he was waiting up when I walked in. I swallowed hard and told him my tale. I was actually hoping he would lash out—verbally, physically—it didn’t matter, but he just sat there saying nothing. I was crushed.

The Bible says we are made in God’s image, and I saw it clearly reflected in my father that night so long ago. My father quietly bearing the cost of my carelessness was worse than any punishment he could have meted out. I learned that night as I saw the pain in my father’s eyes that forgiveness is costly, just as it was for our Heavenly Father who bore in himself the cost of our sin. There is no retribution, no angry histrionics, just pure, unmeasured, and undeserved forgiveness. 

Martin Luther once confessed that it took him years before he could say the Our Father because his own father was such a brutish man. I understand how that could be, but it wasn’t my experience. If I ever wonder what my Heavenly Father is like, all I have to do is remember my earthly father, for whom I give thanks and honor tonight.