Monday Morning Manna: Being Thankful on Father’s Day

Yesterday was Father’s Day. One year, I wrote a poem for my Dad, entitled “Thanksgiving on Father’s Day” in which I thanked him for being a model father, demonstrating for me how to be a Dad, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather. He was so proud of the poem, he actually framed it, and hung it in the hallway of his home. Last year on Father’s Day I was standing in a Palliative Care room of Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, watching the doctor extubate my younger brother, and thinking, how he and Dad were about to have a great, heavenly reunion. I’m going to have a similar reunion one of these days, for I believe, as did they, that “to be absent from the body” is to be “present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). I’m ready, just not anxious. The late American writer, Clarence “Bud” Kelland, could have been describing my Dad, when he wrote about his own father, “He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.” Yesterday, I wished I could have communicated with my Dad again and thanked him for things I watched him do, that I didn’t understand years ago when he died. Someday I will get to thank him again. If your Father is still alive, I trust you thanked him yesterday. If not, there is no better day than today.

Dr. Dan Crawford, Senior Professor at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, is the WestCoast Baptist Association’s Spiritual Life & Leadership Mentor. Follow Dan on Twitter @DrDanRC and Facebook www.facebook.com/dan.crawford.