#22 - Remembering My Father and THE Father on This Father’s Day

My father was a man who worked hard to provide for his family. He demonstrated what it is to give it your all, sometimes even abandoning common sense. I remember once, during a busy lunch hour at our family restaurant, my father, like me just over 5 feet but muscularly thin, once tried to lift a hundred pound bag of rice by himself rather than stop to ask for help and nearly broke his back. Another time, he (THE cook in our family restaurant) was busy chopping some vegetables and cut his hand with the thick-bladed knife. But rather than stop and get medical help, rather than interrupt a very busy lunch hour, he just wrapped a washcloth around the bleeding hand and proceeded to finish out the lunch hour using just his other hand! It was only afterwards that we discovered the extent of his injury and had to rush to take him to the doctor (though I think even then he complained).

Yes, my father was a good example of hard work and was a good provider. And though he had only had a 4th grade education (was sent back to Japan while still in grade school to help on the family farm until past his teen years), he was considered even scholarly among his friends for his extensive reading of material written in Japanese. He also self-taught himself in reading English, as I remember seeing him up early every morning, without fail, reading the English newspaper and writing down in a notepad words he didn’t understand that he later would look up in a dictionary and be found reading over those words in his bedroom. Unfortunately, he was so uncomfortable with his English SPEAKING ability that I never heard him even attempt a conversation in English, not even with my brother and me. It is a sad fact that throughout my entire life, I never had a conversation with my Dad and he never even made any attempt to have one. By doing this, he did teach me how our pride can keep us from stepping out and enjoying some relationships even more fully.

Because of this, my Father was never someone who was available to me or my younger brother to share things with or one from whom we could get insights or direct encouragement. Maybe it was because his father was the same way and that, in fact, the Japanese culture taught all fathers to be aloof from their sons and didn’t teach that they had any responsibility to do more than be good providers and disciplinarians. (Though I always deserved the punishment, my father WAS never shy about being involved in any spankings I received.) I do remember that he used to take me and my younger brother to see a movie each week when I was still in grade school (those times didn’t require him to get into any conversations with us) but for some reason he suddenly stopped spending any time with my brother and I. I wish he had realized that for us, spending time with him would have still been meaningful, even without any conversation.

When my mother died on the last day of January in 2003, my father went into depression and six weeks later, while recovering from surgery, he suddenly decided he was not going to eat. (At his funeral, a family friend shared with me that he told her that he didn’t want to go on living without my Mom. They had been married over 50 years.)Because he had left instructions not to be force fed, my brother and I were not sure what to do but the very next day, my father died. I had tried to have him read the gospel message and have others try to share it with him in Japanese. But to the best of my knowledge, my father did not place his trust in Christ before he died, and so I have no expectation of seeing him in Heaven. He was basically one of those “good” people that we all have to entrust will spend a Christ-less eternity however our Just God decides they deserve to spend it.

On this Father’s Day, I recognize how blessed I was to have even had a Dad as there are so many today who grow up without even the example of a good one. I do hope that YOUR Dad knows Jesus as his Savior and Lord and has been or was more than just a provider but one who chose to be involved in your life, one who was there for you when you needed counsel and encouragement. While I have been greatly blessed to be available to help teen guys over the years, I confess to being jealous of their Dads for the privilege (and I acknowledge also their great responsibility) of being able to speak into the lives of their sons in a way I never will in this life. I only hope that God is not finished using me to at least help other teen guys to better know their HEAVENLY Father as He is the One who is ultimately not only our Perfect Provider but also our Most Wise Counselor and Guide.

Let’s always remember that Jesus came not just to die for our sins but to give us the privilege to have a relationship with our Father in Heaven, One who created us, knows us fully, and still loves us unconditionally, who will meet our every need (though thankfully not all our wants) and never fail to be there to converse with us in the language of prayer. To Him be all glory, on this Father’s Day, and every day.