Father's Love

It's Fathers' Day! My kids - Christine, 13; Paul, 10; and Angel, 4 - heartily greeted me a happy fathers' day today. Angel, my youngest who happens to be closest to me, so kissed me a lot I could hardly breathe! This has been a special time of fathering for me. I feel blessed to be able to provide them time at the moment. If there is ANYTHING that an absentee parent is less capable of doing, it is providing time with children. Not just to send money, but to provide love and comfort and discipline until the child can learn to provide that discipline for themselves. No material gift in the world can match the gift of minutes and hours and days for young kids.

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"When I was young, I never experienced closeness or memorable times with my father. So I promised myself that, when I become a Daddy myself, I will take care of my children in a more caring way. And that's exactly what I do now whatever it takes. My friend Darren texted me the other day and told me that he remembered me and my 4-year-old Angel when he recently watched Will Smith's movie, ""The Pursuit of Happyness." "Parang ikaw yun ha!" (that's like you!), referring to the loving single Dad in the movie. God has taken a past scar and turn it into a present star for me and my own kids! God has given me three beautiful children - Christine (13), Paul (9), and Angel (4)." -- Angelo Subida

"It is a wise father that knows his own child." -- William Shakespeare

"It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was." -- Anne Sexton

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters." -- English Proverb

"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud



Sonora Dodd, of Washington, first had the idea of a "father's day." She thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909.
Sonora wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart. Smart, who was a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife died while giving birth to their sixth child. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state. After Sonora became an adult she realized the selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910. President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, supported the idea of a national Father's Day. Then in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day. President Richard Nixon signed the law which finally made it permanent in 1972.

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Here's a Fathers' Day video sent by one of my seminary students, Word for the World pastor Rodney Garcia: