Happy Father's Day

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

    so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

¹² 

as far as the east is from the west,

    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

¹³ 

As a father shows compassion to his children,

    so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

¹⁴ 

For he knows our frame;

    he remembers that we are dust.

One day a fisherman had urgent business on the far side of a quiet cove. The cove was an active, cheery place where otters and dolphins could be seen to play in the gentle surf.  That particular day, there was no one to stay and care for his young daughter, so he made her a nest among the salty canvas and course brown coils of rope in the stern of his fishing boat.  The boat was small and as they were driven before the breeze the shifting winds would loft her blond curls across his bronze arm.  He held the tiller with his rough stained right hand, his fingers falling into familiar callus carved grooves in the burnished handle.

The breeze was gentle and the sea rolled green and soft beneath the gliding craft.  The capricious cove lay dormant,  protected by a far off reef which foamed, disturbed by thundering waves.  Beyond the reef the mighty sea stretched blue and green till it became the sky and raced back again in cobalt blue.  The girl gazed up enchanted, watching as puffy clouds formed and deformed into a menagerie of friendly shapes. The brief journey took them to a nearby village where an old friend lived alone.

It proved a warm day to patch an old woman's shingle roof and mend an aging barn door.  The fisherman worked with purpose and at his side his small helper would hand him nails or tie the rough wood shingles to a length of rope for him to hoist to the roof.  Hungry for lunch, the little girl squinted into the face of the climbing sun, and wiped a bead of sweat from her porcelain brow.  She smiled and tossed her hair gratefully as the first of many clouds soon shaded her from the unrelenting rays.  However, her father would not share her garden bench or join the lunch of fresh strawberries and cream.

Late into the sticky afternoon, father and daughter completed their tasks.  They were invited to stay the night, but the fisherman declined.  Hand in hand the pair strode across the sand, then drifted along the shore in their little boat as the orange afternoon sun was tucked in and blanketed by lowering clouds.  The friendly figures in the sky had now been replaced by furrows plowed by a contrary wind.

The girl rested in her nest of ropes and sacks dwarfed by the fisherman's coat, which warmed her and conspired with the bobbing craft to send her softly off to sleep.

She awoke with the first crash of thunder, peeped out from beneath the hood, felt the sting of rain on her cheeks, and anxiously looked to her father's face.  Silhouetted against a flickering backdrop and soaked by the driving rain, he stared ahead with stolid determination and focus.  Sensing the glow of her gaze, he offered a gentle smile and a practiced wink.

She glanced around at an angered sea.  She felt the shift and roll and buck and slide, heard the timbers groan and dripping ropes creak as boat and captain refused to submit to the greater force.  She looked again at her father's face, then settled down among the musty coils.

She next awoke to the sound of chirping birds and the warmth of sunlight streaming through her bedroom window.  Her father's singing filtered in from the barn.  Propped on her elbow she could see out her window, and above the sill she spied the little boat bobbing gently, tied just beyond the sandy shore.  She lay still and listened again for her father's soft singing, then lay her curls back on the pillow and breathed a child's contented sigh.

Jesus Said:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  –Matthew 6:26