Honoring Fathers, Remembering Love

This Sunday, as we celebrate Father's Day, our hearts turn toward the men who have shaped our lives. For some, “father” brings to mind a loving, supportive, and affirming presence—a role model, a steady hand, a champion. For others, that word evokes absence, indifference, or pain.

Father’s Day can stir a complex mix of gratitude and grief, joy and longing. But no matter our personal stories, we are all held by a Divine Parent who offers unwavering presence, unconditional love, and endless grace.

The story that follows, written by Becky Harrison, shares a tender memory from her teenage years—one that captures the quiet beauty, vulnerability, and sacred weight of a child’s love for her father. May it speak to your heart, whatever this day holds for you.

With tenderness,

Pastor Robin

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A Father's Day Sketch

By Becky Harrison

I am the youngest of five children in my family. When I was 13 years old, my 60-year-old father had a major heart attack. Since he also had prostate cancer, his life was failing quite fast (although he did live for another 6 years). When I was 15, I wanted to give him the best, and possibly his last, Father's Day present. I was somewhat artistic, so I sketched something just for him.

My family lived in a house my father had built in Beaverton. Although he was born in Hermiston, Oregon, his parents moved to Beaverton when he was a small child.

My father's mother had been one of the founders of the first Nazarene church in our town. Over those years, a larger church was built, and my father, a concrete mason, poured the foundation for the new church.

My Dad had always carried a small, faded picture of the first Nazarene church he attended with his mother. As Father's Day was nearing, I talked my Mom into sneaking it out of his wallet; I wanted to draw and frame a large sketch of the photograph for him, and so she did.

The sketch Becky gave her dad.

I scrounged through my thrift store pencils and pads, and up in our attic, I found a battered old wooden frame for my masterpiece. I had saved several paper grocery bags and wrapped my drawing for my father. On Father's Day morning, I ran into my parents' bedroom and anxiously waited for my father to open my gift. Once he could sit up from his side of the bed, he opened my drawing and quietly said, "Thank you." He then told me to get ready to go to Sunday school, and he would see me in church. I was flabbergasted! (Normally, when I brought home good work from school, or finished my chores, my father would hug me, or stroke my head, so, as he would say, my brain wouldn't get too big.)

I did what I was told to do and went to church. While I sat by myself in the far corner of the nave, I kept watching for my father. Usually, I would walk to church and attend Sunday school, then go outside and wait for my mother to drop my dad off for the service. Since he was so frail, I would give him my arm to help him enter the church and find us a place to sit. Often, during the services, I would hold the Bible or hymnal for both of us.

As Reverend Anderson was speaking about honoring our fathers and returning our love to them, I saw my dad being escorted by one of the ushers on the far side. He was walking down the aisle - and he was carrying my sketch! With help from Rev. Anderson, my father walked up to the pulpit while the minister was talking about me, and the gift that I had made for my father.

As my father stood behind the pulpit, Rev. Anderson held up my sketch, and my dad said, "Thank you, Becky."