Father's Day has been historically connected to a memorial service conducted in a church in West Virginia that, in 1908, chose to honor the men who died in a mining disaster the previous December. Perhaps unrelated, the following year, a woman raised by a widower named Sonora Smart Dodd rallied churches, businesses and the YMCA to establish a holiday similar to Mother's Day. On June 19, 1910, Washington State was the first to sponsor a statewide holiday for fathers.
Fathers matter. Research reveals that when fathers play with their children, they increase their intellectual and social development. On average, children with active fathers have higher college entrance exam scores and greater academic success. Physically active children can point to a father who exercised. Fathers have a tremendous role in the life of their children.
Not every child has a father or a healthy relationship with a man. The National Fatherhood Initiative says that one in four children live without a biological, step- or adoptive father in the home. Sadly, though, it feels that more and more men are having children but not being fathers.
Perhaps men are not being fathers because they don't know how. Their father was absent or didn't meet their needs, so they didn't know what to do. There is one bit of counsel rooted in scripture that can clarify the mission of fatherhood.
Psalm 127 describes children as a heritage, like arrows, and a father is blessed with a quiver full. Fathers then have a mission that is beyond themselves. Fathers plant trees in whose shade they will never rest.
Like arrows, a father's mission is to prepare, aim, and launch their children in the direction best suited for them. A father must put their ego aside and the dreams they didn't reach to prepare and launch their children to chase theirs. Too many men try to relive their glory days through their children's lives. Your mission is to prepare, aim, and launch your children in the direction for them.
I am thankful for the father I have. Looking back on the teenage me, I cannot say I expressed that well. The adult me can say I have been launched and am building on the heritage implanted within me.
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