Father's Day Talk

After much deliberation, I decided to include a copy of my Father's Day talk in our family history because of the stories I tell about my dad.  Please don't feel any obligation to read it. It's a really long church talk, after all.  Just putting it in for our posterity.

Happy Fathers’ Day!  I’m happy to be here today.  It’s such an honor and responsibility to be asked to speak on Father’s Day.  At first I felt like, “What?  Oh no.  I’m not an expert on fatherhood!  I’m not even a father.”  But as I thought about it, I realized that throughout my life, I have been surrounded by excellent, honorable fathers.   Of course my own dad is amazing, but also both of my grandfathers were exceptional.  And David, and his dad and grandfathers are amazing.   I have seen fatherhood at its finest throughout my life, so maybe I am an expert after all. 

Bishop Beech asked me to speak today specifically about my father and about our Father in Heaven.   I am a little nervous about this assignment – I am aware that father’s Day is not the happiest day in everyone’s life.  I know that not everyone has had fathers that they can look up to or that some men wish to become fathers and aren't or other circumstances.   I don’t want it to seem like I’m “Hey look at me!  My dad can beat up your dad, “etc.  My life’s not perfect, and my dad’s not perfect.  But I can I only speak about the things I know.  And the things I have experienced.    They’re not the same experiences you've had.  Please don’t feel like I’m trying to compare my life to anyone else’s.  

When we talk about fatherhood or families, and especially because everyone is in a different place, I like to start with a wonderful analogy given by Elder Jeffery R. Holland.  He called it “The parable of the homemade shirt” and I’m just going to read you the whole thing. 

"My mother, bless her, was a marvelous seamstress. In my childhood years, when money was short and new clothing hard to come by, she would sometimes make clothing for us to wear to school. I would see a shirt in a store window or in a mail-order catalogue, and my mother would say, “I think I can make that.” By looking at the shirt as closely as she could, she would then cut cloth and put in seams to a degree that was close to the expensive original. 

"I pay her the tribute of being both willing and able to do that. But she didn’t like to do it that way. While she could study the commercial product and come close, what she really wanted was a pattern. A pattern helped her anticipate angles and corners and seams and stitches that were otherwise hard to recognize. Furthermore, if she went back for a second or a third shirt, she was always working from a perfect original pattern, not repeating or multiplying the imperfections of a replica. 

"I think you can see my point and hers. We are bound to be in trouble if a shirt is made from a shirt that was made from a shirt. A mistake or two in the first product—inevitable without a pattern—gets repeated and exaggerated, intensified, more awkward, the more repetitions we make, until finally this thing I’m to wear to school just doesn’t fit. One sleeve’s too long. The other’s too short. One shoulder seam runs down my chest. The other runs down my back. And the front collar button fastens behind my neck. I can tell you right now that such a look is not going to go over well in the seventh grade.

"Now, I hope this helps you understand why we talk about the pattern, the ideal, of marriage and family when we know full well that not everyone now lives in that ideal circumstance. It is precisely because many don’t have, or perhaps have never even seen, that ideal and because some cultural forces steadily move us away from that ideal, that we speak about what our Father in Heaven wishes for us in His eternal plan for His children. "

I LOVE this parable.  It just makes sense to me.  The family is under HEAVY artillery fire from Satan.  He is doing everything he can to belittle and demean and devalue family life.  One of the ways he is doing that is by attacking fathers.  He wants you out of the home and uninvolved and over-tired, and distracted so that he can destroy you and the family you are responsible to protect.   Look at the way fathers are portrayed on television.  It’s a joke.  Think about nearly every commercial you can remember.  Dads are portrayed as lazy, stupid, selfish, irresponsible, beer drinking, sports fiends.  Or occasionally as harmless, loveable buffoons that the rest of us tolerate.  That’s not okay.  That’s not what we need.  We need strong, honorable, smart, engaged fathers IN our homes and IN our children’s lives.  Fathers make such a difference!  So I’m grateful that Heavenly Father has provided a pattern for us – to show us the IDEAL way to be a father.   We may not all be able to follow the pattern perfectly, but we can at least have the pattern to look at. 

What is the pattern?  It starts with His example.  Just like you teach your children by example, our Father in Heaven is teaching you how to be a father by example. We always hear that actions speak louder than words, and Heavenly Father’s actions show us a loving, caring, involved father.  But He also teaches with words, with specific lessons – like you do when you give FHE lessons or have discussions with your kids.  He teaches through the scriptures, the prophets, the proclamation, etc.  We have many ways to learn the pattern of Fatherhood.

When we talk about the responsibilities of fathers, we often quote the Proclamation on the Family, “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.”  We sometimes call these the three Ps of fatherhood (preside, provide, and protect.) In each of these three areas, we can look to our Father in Heaven as the example.   He presides over His family.  To preside is to lead, teach, and be responsible for – not to rule or own.  That is exactly what he does.  He teaches and guides us.  And he does so in love and righteousness.  The earth was created under His direction.  It is His plan that we are following.  We use His power here on earth - He delegates it to us and allows us to help Him in His work and His glory.  Just like a dad delegates the opportunity to teach lessons in FHE or to say prayers for the family.  Heavenly father holds the responsibility for the plan of salvation working out, and it will.  It is His work and His glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man – and He allows us to help Him with parts of it – for our benefit as well as others. We need fathers to Follow Heavenly Father’s pattern and preside over their families in love and righteousness. 

The proclamation says we need fathers to “Lead in love and righteousness.”  Heavenly Father loves us so much.  I’m sure that I don’t even comprehend the level of love He has for us.  I remember when my first daughter was born, I was kind of overwhelmed by the intensity of the feelings of love I had for her.  But Heavenly Father has a greater capacity for love than I can fathom in mortality.  He loves us infinity – eternally – perfectly.  Listen to this quote from our prophet, given in the closing remarks of our last general conference:  “God, our Eternal Farther lives and loves is.  He is indeed our Father and He is personal and real.  May we realize how close to us He is willing to come, how far He is willing to go to help us, and how much He loves us.”  What powerful words from the man who would know better than any of us on earth.  I believe him.  I believe that Heavenly Father loves us more than we even get. 

He loves us so much that he presented the Plan of Salvation.  This beautiful plan will give us the opportunity to experience exaltation.  He created this world for us and gave us mortal bodies.  What an amazing gift!  He is kind of the ultimate example of providing for His family.  I mean, consider the lilies!  Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these!  And yet the scripture goes on to say that if He would care for the grass in the field in such a way, imagine how much He does for you, His child.  We need fathers to follow Heavenly Father’s pattern and provide for their families. 

Heavenly Father has provided for us in much more than just a temporal way.  Because of the atonement of Jesus Christ, He has provided for every contingency for every person.  I can’t imagine how painful it must have been for Heavenly Father to allow His perfect, innocent, humble Son perform the atonement.  We often think about Abraham – and what he experienced is unfathomable to me, but Heavenly Father did not get to pull away the knife.  He had to go through with the sacrifice of His Son, with that son begging Him to take it away.  And He had the power to take it away.  He must have hurt as bad as Christ did in many ways.  But He loves us so much that He allowed Christ to complete His mission.  And by so doing, He provided for all of his imperfect children to come home to Him. 

He loves is so much that He provided us with the Holy Ghost.  That gift is a comfort, a guide, a teacher, and a protector for each of us.  Through the Holy Ghost, we are able to feel God’s love for us and learn of Him in deeper-than-mental ways.  One of the most important ways a father can follow the pattern of Heavenly Father is to teach to tune into the Holy Ghost – to teach them how to hear and act on His promptings.  It can be such a powerful protection against Satan.  Heavenly Father speaks to us one-on-one through the power of the Holy Ghost.  If we can learn to listen, we can learn what He wants us personally to do.  We all need that guidance – both as parents and as children.

The Holy Ghost is one of the things Heavenly Father has given us as protection against the adversary.  He wants to protect us.  So he also gives us commandments, teachings, and even sometimes miracles.  Sometimes he protects our physical bodies.  We all know of stories when people are physically protected by divine intervention.  But I believe that more often than that even, He protects our spirits.  He knows that there are worse things than a broken arm or a big medical bill.  The real danger is sin – anything that will take us away from our goal of eternal life.  And God loves us so much that He does everything He can to protect us from that.  And WHEN we fail, because we have agency and we’re stupid sometimes, Heavenly father forgives us and helps us find our way back through the atonement.  He is the perfect example for fathers of protecting their families and helping them when they get hurt. 

These are just some of the examples, but as I hope you can see, Heavenly Father has given us the pattern for earthly fathers to follow.  If we look to his example and His teachings, we will see the right way to be a father.  Elder Hales once said that “In many ways earthly parents represent their Heavenly Father in the process of nurturing, loving, caring [for], and teaching children. Children naturally look to their parents to learn of the characteristics of their Heavenly Father. After they come to love, respect, and have confidence in their earthly parents, they often unknowingly develop the same feelings toward their Heavenly Father” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1993, 10; or Ensign, Nov. 1993, 9). So if we want our children to be close to our Heavenly Father, we’d better study the pattern we should be following!

I’m so blessed to have a father who tried to follow the pattern established by our Heavenly Father as he raised our family.  He is an exceptional man.  I know many women in this world wonder if there are any good men out there anymore, and my answer to them is “Yes.  There are.  I know many.  My dad is one.”  He is NOT perfect.  But I think he’s pretty fantastic.

My dad was a great, humble, loving leader in our home.  He called us together for family prayers and taught us about the gospel  - both formally, in FHE settings, and informally in day-to-day conversations.  I don’t think I ever learned anything in Primary that I hadn’t already heard at home.  And he took opportunities to give us father’s blessings.  The beginning of the school year was a very special time for our family.  The nights when Dad gave us our back-to-school blessings each year were sacred.   They were sacred because we felt his love for each of us, and through him, we felt Heavenly Father’s love for each of us as well. 

Dad was a wonderful provider for our family.  He has five children.  We had a big, active, crazy family.  Most of the time, not all of the time, but most of the time, my mom stayed home.  I know that’s not possible for every family, especially in today’s economic circumstances.  But for me, in my life, it mattered so much!  I needed my mom – still do for that matter.  Maybe I could speak next Mother’s Day so I can tell you about her too!  I think money was tight a lot of the time.  I think there was probably more stress than I ever clued in on.  Because Dad always came home happy.  Looking back, I think there must have been many days when he took a deep breath on his way in the back door of our home and set aside the cares of his job to be present and pleasant in our lives.  He was amazing that way.

We always knew that Dad loved us.  Wait a minute – let me back up and say that we always knew Dad loved mom!  Not just because they’d kiss in front of us – YUCK!  But because he told us so.  All the time!  Sometimes, at dinner dad would say, “Kids…” and we’d all go, “yeah yeah dad, we know.  No one holds a candle to our mother…”  And it was more than words.  Dad loved to be home.  He and mom thought doing the dishes together was like a date!  They just loved being together and they pretty much always were.  Dad honored mom’s decisions and if we were naughty or disrespectful to her he’d take care of it in a flash.  When we got older and bigger than our mom, we used to tease her.  We’d circle around her and say something like, “We’re going to eat those cookies and you can’t stop us.  Dad’s not here to protect you now…”    We were totally teasing, but the point is, we knew where we fit in the totem pole of Dad’s affections. 

But that’s not to say that we didn’t know how much Dad loved us.  Dad was very involved in our daily lives.  He spent not only quality time, but quantity time with his children.  He gave baths, and read bedtime stories, and tucked us in.  He went to school programs and sporting events.  I always appreciated that he didn’t yell at me from the stands, but almost every time I came out of the locker room after half time, he’d be waiting for me on the sidelines to give me a little private instruction or encouragement.  He bore his testimony to his family both formally an informally often.  He taught us to work in our home and our big back yard.  Then, almost every time we finished working in the yard, he’d take us to the neighborhood gas station for a 50 cent ice cream cone.  He liked us.  And he’d tell us so.  Sometimes, when I was a teenager, it was embarrassing.  I’d be walking down the hall and my dad would be like, “Kelley.  Come here.”  I’d say, “ohhh, man!!! Come on, Dad.”  He’d take me over to a picture of me hanging on the wall when I was like three years old or something and be like, “Look at this adorable girl.  That’s you, you know.”  I’d be soooo annoyed, but not really.  Each one of his children knew that dad loved them. 

Dad protected his family.  He must have done a pretty good job of protecting us, in fact, because I don’t think any of his children ever had a broken bone!  Let me tell you a story of protection.  When I was 8 years old, our family lived in Logan.  My dad was recovering from back surgery and could barely hobble around, but one night our family went for a little outing up Logan canyon.  We stopped on the side of the road somewhere and scrambled up the side of the mountain.   Dad, of course, stayed behind and watched us from a large rock.  We scrambled up a hundred yards or so to some cave-like thing or something.  I don’t remember.  But I know the mountainside was very gravelly and pretty steep.  And I remember my mom and siblings being kind of nervous about how to get down.  I didn’t see the issue, and I told them all so.  “Just run down!”  Which is what I did. Imagine my father sitting at the bottom of the hill, powerless to do anything as he watched his little girl’s face change from confidence to fear right before she bounced down the mountain on her head/knees/head/knees/head.  It was pretty memorable for both of us and I still have the scars to remember it by.  That may have been one of those times when Heavenly Father protected me physically. 

Only now that I am a parent myself am I starting to grasp how difficult it must have been to raise me.  I was kind of a punk!  He must have wanted to cuff me almost every single day.  I hate to imagine how he felt as his pretty talented young basketball and track star announced that she was giving up sports in favor of dance.  (not that there’s anything wrong with dancing, but I wasn’t going to be getting a scholarship in dance, that’s for sure).  I’m not sure if my own kids did that, I’d be able to let them use their agency.  I think there was a time in my life when my dad watched helplessly as I bounced down a spiritual hill and he probably felt pretty powerless to protect me.  I know that he spent a lot of time on his knees asking for guidance and I truly believe he received it.  He practiced incredible self-restraint during that time and just tried to love me unconditionally.  I am SO grateful for the love and patience he showed to me and that he knew who to turn to when he needed help raising a difficult child. 

And now that I’m already crying, let me end with a story about my dad that I’ve never shared before.  I don’t even remember the circumstances.  But our family was going through a rough time, as all families do.   I was probably in my early 20s.  We were kneeling in a special family prayer and my dad was going to be the one to offer it.  As he began the prayer, he didn’t say, “Our most kind and gracious father in Heaven,” or even, “Heavenly Father.”  He just sighed and very humbly said, “Father,”   Then he proceeded to give the most reverent, personal, pleading prayer.  Like I said, I don’t even remember what he prayed about, but it was one of the most sacred moments in my life.  As I knelt there, I KNEW that my dad didn’t go to church because it was the social thing to do or for any program or person.  I knew that he went because he truly believed with his whole soul.  I knew that dad knew our father in Heaven.  I listened to my dad as he spoke to his literal father in a very personal, humble way as if He were in the room with us.  And on that day, I learned so much about my earthly father and also about my relationship with my Heavenly Father. 

I know how powerful the influence of fathers can be.  I am grateful for an earthly father who tries to follow the pattern of fatherhood established by our Heavenly Father.  I am grateful that he taught me by word and example about our Heavenly Father.  And I am grateful for a kind, patient, loving, caring Heavenly Father who wants nothing more than for all of His children to succeed and be eternally happy.