Thoughts On A Father's Day

Mrs. John Bruce Dodd of Spokane, Washington, started Father's Day in 1910.  The custom spread through-out the United States.  It is a day in which many persons from the U.S. and Canada express their appreciation to their fathers through gifts, cards, a phone call, or a visit.  (This information came from The World Book Encyclopedia, 1973 Copyright.... which tells you something about my house, what I keep, and which sources I really like to use.)

My dad was born in 1915.  Perhaps he celebrated a few Father's Days with his own father or perhaps not.  They lived on several different farms before settling in Iowa and were more than likely busy with planting, harvesting, carrying for the chickens-pigs-cows-and an occasional horse, canning, and butchering a hog or cow when the family needed meat.

He's 97 years old now and understandingly finds some of the changes incredible.  His mother thought it remarkable that she rode a horse to school and lived long enough to see a rocket go into space.  My dad who farmed his entire life, shakes his head and smiles over the use of air-conditioning in farm equipment, a device called a GPS to assist with planting--not to mention the cost of an acre of farmland or a new tractor.
Growing up on this very farm my Dad and his family did, I would never have imagined as I hoed the garden, walked the beans, ran through the rain-puddles for entertainment, and drank a cool drink from the hose whenever I wished that someday I would go shopping and actually pay for a bag of dirt for my plants and a bottle of water for me to drink. 

Someone once said that the only thing we can be sure of is change.

I spent part of Father's Day with my dad and can tell you that some things do not change.  I have always felt loved by my dad; I still do.  

There is another thing I can be sure of, however, and you can, too.  And, that is God's unconditional love for us and his promise of life in an eternity. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today and forever.  Hebrew 13:8 

or . . . for I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come,nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of god in Christ Jesus our Lord, Romans 8:38, 39

Wishing you unexpected blessings this week.