Retired pastor Gordon Schleicher looks back on ways he honored his father and encourages us to do the same by celebrating the fathers and father figures in our lives.

J. GORDON SCHLEICHER
Retired Pastor, Michigan Conference

Some would say I hardly knew my father, and I felt that way for a long time. You see, my father died when I was thirteen. He was twenty years older than my mother. And for the longest time, I blamed him for not being around for me. My friends had fathers who did things with them, watched them play sports, took them to ball games, and were present for their birthdays and graduations through high school and college.

And then, my mother and her mother, my grandmother, sent me to a private boys’ boarding school in another state. I could have said “enrolled me” instead of “sent me,” but I felt that given my father’s absence and being the only male in our family, I should be at home to give some male leadership.

After a few weeks of living 24-7 with other boys at a school with an all-male faculty, I delighted in not being around my two younger sisters.

I don’t know when it occurred, but at some point, I forgot about the father I had had. It was as if I never had a father.

During my college years, my mother sent me a box of memorabilia. It included grade school papers and letters I sent to my parents when I spent the summers with my grandparents and attended scout and church camps. In that box was a local newspaper article with a photo of my father. It touted the contributions of John Schleicher, including how he was viewed in the community. In that same box were various photos showing my father as an officer in the community service club, as part of a fifty-member male chorus in performance, and displaying his hobby at my elementary school.

I didn’t know about these things or had forgotten about them. And I hadn’t realized that many people recognized the God-given gifts my father had shared with the community.

My anger and disappointment over his leaving me and my mother so early in our lives had blinded me to the real husband, father, and community citizen he had always been.

I began to remember that my father and I had done things together. He had guided me as a young boy in making my Cub Scout and Boy Scout projects. When he worked on his hobby of restoring an antique car, he explained to me what he was doing, and I often “helped” by handing him the proper tools. As the owner of a service station, he had often stopped what he was doing to put air in a bike tire or fix a flat tire or bike chain for kids in the community.

Near that time, I heard a pastor’s sermon mention the commandment to honor your father and mother. That commandment referred to adult children honoring one’s aging parents. My mother taught us children to honor our father with a homemade card on Father’s Day. But now that I am 80, I wonder if and how I honored him throughout the years he was alive.

Father’s Day is a time to thank God for those men in your life. Is your father or your grandfather worthy of honor? How about that uncle, teacher, pastor, or friend?

Although my father is no longer living, I have written to him. In that letter, I thank him for the times he included me in his activities, recognized my accomplishments, loved my sisters and me, and how his forethought provided for our family after his death. Perhaps most importantly, I thanked him for how he loved my mother. His love for her taught me what it meant to love my wife.

On this Father’s Day 2024, I give God thanks for the men who have served as father figures throughout my teenage, adult, and older adult years: Rev. Charles Wesley Shreiner, the founder and head of the boys’ school I attended during my high school years; the pastors of churches I attended; Dr. Fred Haur, chair of my doctoral dissertation committee; District Superintendent Rev. Robert Selberg, who called me to serve as a pastor; Bishop David Bard, whose words continue to give me hope in these troubled times, and many others.

Father’s Day is a day to celebrate fathers and father figures in your life. It’s a chance to show appreciation for their love, guidance, and support. We can do so by:

• • honoring fathers, recognizing the contributions they make to their children’s lives;
  • showing appreciation, expressing gratitude for father figures who made positive contributions to our lives; and
  • celebrating fatherhood and its essential role in families and society today.

Being a good father takes work. Look to God and God’s son to guide you. In doing so, the Lord will be pleased.

Last Updated on June 12, 2024