Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, June 16, 2024
After a heavy rain my father would announce, “I think it rained money – you’d better check the front yard!” So I, usually with a friend or two, would carefully inspect the edges of the sidewalk which connected our front steps with our front gate.
Sure enough, wedged in between the sidewalk and the lawn on either side we would find several dimes and nickels that we would dig out and pocket for the next time the Popcorn Lady drove her wonderful truck into our neighborhood. (We thought raining cats and dogs was nowhere near as nice as raining dimes and nickels!)
If my father liked someone, young or old, he gave them a nickname. The first time I remember hearing him say my true name was when I was eleven years old and he was applying for a passport for me. When the clerk asked for my full name, he looked at me rather sheepishly before he said, “Shelley Claire Walther.” I think I heard him say “Shelley” two more times after that in the 35 years we knew each other. All other times he called me “Slugger.” Not the most feminine of names, I must admit, but somehow I never minded it.
I knew when he liked my friends because he gave them nicknames, too. I’m not sure all of them appreciated his choice of names, but I think they were rather philosophical about them. We all accepted the fact that my father was a character, and probably not apt to change his ways, or his nicknames, any time soon.
He enjoyed making things for me and my friends. Every spring he would cut new jumping ropes for us from a big bundle in the garage, and make us wood stilts, custom-sized for each of us. Our front yard was a gathering place for kids, including the evenings when he mowed the lawn. We’d all help rake up the grass into one big pile in the middle of the yard, then end the evening with a big grass fight. My friends would run home as their parents called them from their front steps, and my father and I would rake up the grass again before calling it a night.
One of our favorite family stories that my sisters and I included in my father’s memorial service was the time the little girl next door rang our doorbell while we were eating supper to ask, “if Mr. Walther could come out to play.”
I’ve thought about these memories, and more, as Fathers’ Day approached. I started musing about the ways my earthly father gave me a hint of what my Heavenly Father was like.
I see three hints from what I’ve written above. First, my Heavenly Father likes to rain down gifts on me, too. I need to keep my eyes open, ready to notice any surprises He’s planned for my delight.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17 NIV)
And God has a name picked out for me – I very much doubt it’s Slugger!
Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it. (Revelation 2:17 NIV)
My Heavenly Father enjoys making things for His children, too:
But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (I Corinthians 2:9 NKJV)
My earthly father was not perfect. One of the ways I considered him imperfect was that he wanted me to be perfect.
Awards were handed out in my elementary school for those who had perfect attendance for the whole year, and my father wanted us to get those awards! My mother, who was an RN, had to insist we stay home from school when we were certifiably sick, but he was not happy on those occasions. (However, I knew what would always happen on those sick days: part way through the morning he would leave work and come home with ginger ale and a jigsaw puzzle for me.)
He also wanted me to get perfect grades – straight A’s. One year – third grade, I think — I got a B in Citizenship. My teacher told me this was because I sometimes cried in class – which, of course, made me want to burst into tears! I fought back those tears in case she would lower my grade to a C. (It’s only now that I want to ask her, What does crying have to do with citizenship? And why didn’t she seem interested in why I sometimes cried in class?)
I was so ashamed of being classified as a B citizen that when I brought my report card home, I tossed it up on the top shelf of the wardrobe in my bedroom, out of sight.
Sometimes it takes a while for us to untangle our perceptions of our fathers from that of our Father God. I tried so hard to please my father, to be a daughter he would be proud of – awards and good grades and anything else that would impress him.
But now I know that while my earthly father pushed for perfection; my Heavenly Father provided it. In Jesus. On a cross.
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
“This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”
Then he adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.” (Hebrews 10:11-17 NIV)
Whew. No wonder the word “gospel” means “good news.”
On this Father’s Day, no matter what our relationships are or were with our earthly fathers, we can rest secure in the love and acceptance of our Heavenly Father, who calls us His beloved children.