Father’s Day was this past Sunday and we all stopped and honored the men in our lives. I had a dad that I loved very much but he was a dad that just couldn’t keep his life together. I had a stepdad that came into my life when I was 15 years old and changed the entire trajectory of my world. Today, I want to share my “favorite” dad story, about Robert, my biological dad.

My parents split up for the final time when I was 13 years old and my dad moved to Oregon to live with his girlfriend. At some point, Dad was thrown out of her house and was basically drinking himself into a grave. A friend of his took him to a small religious cult in northern California called, ISO’T (In Search of Truth). They dried him out and he spend several years there.

On one visit that my brother and I had with him, he had driven us down to Redding, California, so we could hop a Greyhound bus and return the rest of the way home. I can still remember clearly, pulling up to the curb at the bus depot and getting out of the car. Dad didn’t come into the station with us, he dropped us at the curb and drove away. Now, this was probably about 1981, so we didn’t have cell phones and I am not sure if we had a house phone at the time. I remember walking up to the ticket window with my 8-year-old brother to purchase our tickets. We were $5 short! I can still remember thinking, “now what do I do?” Looking down the street, I noticed a Crocker Bank. I walked down to the bank, talked to a teller, convinced her that I really did have a savings account from my babysitting money, withdrew $5, walked back to the bus depot and purchased our bus tickets to get home! All by myself and all at the age of 14 years old! It never occurred to my dad that he shouldn’t drop his two children at the bus depot in a city alone. It didn’t occur to him that he should wait with us until our bus arrived. It just didn’t occur to him! I share this story so that you can see how my family dynamic really was. Nothing ever occurred to my dad! He didn’t think about us having groceries, a stove to cook on, shoes, or if my mom had a warm coat in the winter…he was always only concerned with what he wanted and how to get it. Now, I am not saying he was a monster—although there were times that was true. I am saying that in his own way, I know he loved us. But he wasn’t the greatest father of all time!

Last Sunday, our guest speaker at church, spoke about his earthly father and what he learned from him. Then he spoke about our heavenly father. Our heavenly father who is always there for us. Our heavenly father that loves us, even in the midst of our failures and struggles. Our heavenly father who sacrificed his only son, so that we could be reconciled to him.

A great father would have taken my brother and I into the bus depot. He would have purchased our tickets. He would have sat with us, soaking in the time we had together. He would have hugged us tightly before we stepped onto that bus. Maybe he would have cried, knowing how much he would miss us. He would have lavished us with his loved, until we saw each other again. 1 John 3:1, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God!”

For those of us who have been disappointed by our earthly fathers, we know we have a heavenly father who will never let us down. Our Lord told Joshua, as he was getting ready to lead the nation of Israel after the death of Moses, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”