Father's Day Delights

Our heavenly FATHER gave us a beautiful Father's Day, complete with rain showers late in the evening, something we desperately needed!

After morning church service, the children begged their daddy and me to come see the blooming water lilies in the pond nearby.

I loved those few quiet, eager, delightful moments with the father of our family. 

Father's Day morning had been a bit frantic when several of the children had to try to hunt several bunnies that got out, while others of us were trying to get food and a homemade Father's Day card ready to take to Jonathan's parents for dinner after church. It had been a long time since we spent Father's Day with Jonathan's dad, as we have usually been away, so Jonathan wanted to spend it with his dad this year.

I asked to be let out of the van just before we arrived at church, to take a picture of a deer and fawn.

 As I crept near the deer, it bounded away, and the fawn turned out to be a funny stump!

I didn't care. For just a couple minutes, I could walk by myself in the sunshine and quiet my poor heart.

And it quieted even more when I slipped in beside my hubby, while a worshipful prelude was played and people sat in quiet worship and prayer as usual just before service. What a relief to hear quietness!

After all the racket and rush and work of the week, there was suddenly this holy hush.  

Quietness holds a lot of value for me, especially the holy kind,
the kind where you are laying aside your busyness, your work, your overwrought emotions, and opening your heart to the Lord.

We had spent a very, very busy week with my brother's family here, and then Thursday night there was an S.O.S. from a returned missionary family, Jason and Becky Corbin and their three boys who are home now from Ghana, Africa. Tonya [Sickler] Poe had called me to tell me the Corbins were stranded up at Limon an hour from us on their way to her place from California. A vehicle had broken down. We had called to offer help or overnight stay, and the Corbins ended up arriving on our doorstep about 11 o'clock Thursday night. (Becky Corbin used to be good friends with my sister Joella when they attended Penn View together.) We bedded 24 people for the night, many of ours and Gabriel's who wanted to sleep out of doors!

 To make a long, busy story a little longer and busier, we had quite the interesting day Friday, and finally saw both families off in the early evening. The very next day, I put together a picnic for Jonathan and our boys and the other work guys and went in to spend all afternoon cleaning again at a house that had recently been vacated by people who had not been paying rent and who had trashed the place. Jonathan's work guys dubbed it "the STINKY house," a house they were helping get ready for market. I will dispense with the gory descriptions of how Crystal had to fill how many trash bags just clearing out the place, and how long I spent sweeping and mopping the mud off the basement floor and how the closet had been a cat's toilet, and other things. But I said I would dispense with details. Soooo--be thankful that was all the detail I gave.

So it's no wonder my worn out body was grateful for a worshipful service, and then for a walk around this peaceful pond, complete with a goose family and a mallard duck, a nest hidden in the reeds, blooming water lilies, and a deer trying to hide in the grass over there. Can you spy it?

So then we traveled on to Jonathan's parents' place where we had dinner with them and his sister Esther's family. I asked for a photo of the dad of our family, our sons, and Jonathan's dad. (Timmy  had to stay home sick.)

It is a challenge for me to have time and energy to also manage to find a way to honor my own dad as well as Jonathan!! I forgot to get a card for my dad, and Jonathan forgot to get one for his! Sooo--making a homemade one to take to Jonathan's dad added to the rush and bustle in the morning, and then in the afternoon I started a card for my dad. 

Here's the inside, with "10 Things My Dad Taught Us."

 And I encouraged all our children to make homemade cards for their own daddy, telling him things they are thankful for or appreciate about him! I want to train them to be in this habit for years down the road when their daddy is a little bit decrepit and feeling like he isn't worth anything anymore.

He will need his children to write him or call him and tell him how much he means to them.

And it is up to me to teach them how to do that in creative ways--to model it, to make suggestions for them, and then to expect them to do it in their own words and way, and they don't get to do their favorite activity until it is done!!

Yeah, I'm that kind of mean old mom, expecting them to love on their daddy.

I try to make sure that in all the hustle and bustle our own daddy is not left out. I have to admit I can't always "do it all" and that is why we have had to make some adjustments about how we spend holidays when we have such a big family and still have living parents and large family on both sides. We have to take turns where and how we spend holidays, and make sure that our nuclear family is put first in these formative years of our children's lives, so that we can celebrate in ways that prioritize and teach our family's personal beliefs.
where mom and dad aren't embarrassed to express affection for each other and for their children, young children being obedient to parents, older children being given more freedom and being supported by us parents rather than criticized, God being honored in real and specific ways, music being sung and played, prayer being offered, God's Word being read and honored, people being loved and respected and rejoiced with and sympathized with and shared with rather than scorned and growled at and envied.  We have so many blessings--why need we be jealous when others are blessed or honored?

Father's Day evening after supper, I asked Jonathan, as the father of our home, to please read us his favorite Scripture.

He chose Psalm 37.

I couldn't help snapping a picture of our youngest daughter sitting on her daddy's lap and being held so kindly by him. 

There are so many daughters, so many grown women out there struggling with a huge father-hunger 

because they did not have a kind, caring, involved father.

Too often they turn to illegitimate sources for love, attention, and belonging.

It is such a blessing for me to watch our daughters being loved, held, hugged, and cared about in a healthy way by their dear daddy--my husband!

It also helps me with my own concept of fatherhood and of God as my heavenly Father. 

In fact, I wrote a poem about this on Father's Day afternoon, and if you want it, contact me.

After Jonathan read the Psalm, we prayed around the circle, each for a different father that we knew.

We try to freshen our prayer times with things like this to help us focus and not grow weary in well doing. 
I couldn't help snapping another photo of the prayer time.

Jonathan and I would be the first to admit we aren't the perfect parents, and we fail a LOT (especially  me!!!!) But I am thankful for our family and for my wonderful husband as a loving father in our home.

We had a bunch of gifts for him (which we didn't bother to wrap since we were making cards and writing poems and other things and hadn't gotten home till mid-afternoon), and he didn't mind at all.  (See? He is so easy to please!) Sam is modeling a "new" shirt and pants for his daddy, a couple sizes too big for Sam!

And as we were going to bed, we heard rain pattering! Thank You, Lord! We are in drought, and fire danger is very high, and Jonathan's allergies have been miserable, so rain is such a welcome Father's Day gift from our loving, kind, merciful, longsuffering, gracious, holy, forgiving, faithful, prayer-answering heavenly Father!