“Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” This is the first commandment with promise. It is binding upon childhood and youth, upon the middle-aged and the aged. There is no period in life when children are excused from honoring their parents. This solemn obligation is binding upon every son and daughter and is one of the conditions to their prolonging their lives upon the land which the Lord will give the faithful. This is not a subject unworthy of notice, but a matter of vital importance. The promise is upon condition of obedience. If you obey, you shall live long in the land which the Lord your God gives you. If you disobey, you shall not prolong your life in that land (Adventist Home 292.3, emphasis supplied).
I used to love Father's Day. Our family celebrated with all the generations together at our house. We grilled corn and made homemade ice cream. We ate on the patio. Yummy fun! “Happy Father's Day, Dad, Grandpa, Uncle...!”
I grew up. Grandpa and Uncle died. Then our family fell apart. In thirty years of marriage, Mom had numerous biblical grounds for divorce, yet accepted Dad's hollow promises. The family counselor, a last resort, felt divorce was inevitable. Mom wrote a cryptic letter to her children, then divorced him.
I recall Dad saying, “Do as I say, not as I do,” when we were kids. What had he done, that Mom would divorce him now? Dad, the conference employee, the church elder... A coworker described us as “the perfect family.” Mom had confided only in God.
I confronted my father, and he admitted he had been unfaithful with other men. What?! And now the stigma of divorce would fall on Mom, also a conference employee. She was near-perfect in my eyes. I could not have this.
So I told my brother. I told some friends. I defended her. How dare Dad spout off Mom's faults and failings, as if she would divorce him for any trivial reason. And him “in the closet” all these decades?
“Charity, you must honor your father. He loves you. Keep him involved in your life. Forgive him,” Mom urged.
Humph! All those years of my friends thinking he was a pastor, 'cause he dressed in a suit and spoke like God's parrot. Humph! Carrying his Bible, nagging me about makeup—forget it!
He came home late many nights, from “God's business,” I had supposed. I didn't want to imagine what he had really been up to, sometimes. Who could ever respect him now?
Parents are entitled to a degree of love and respect which is due to no other person. God Himself, who has placed upon them a responsibility for the souls committed to their charge, has ordained that during the earlier years of life parents shall stand in the place of God to their children. And he who rejects the rightful authority of his parents is rejecting the authority of God. The fifth commandment requires children not only to yield respect, submission, and obedience to their parents, but also to give them love and tenderness, to lighten their cares, to guard their reputation, and to succor and comfort them in old age (Adventist Home 293.1, emphasis supplied).
Guard Dad's reputation, really? I wanted to blow his cover right off! I wanted to open his closet and show the world the truth.
I tried to take Mom's advice, to love Dad, to keep in touch, sort of. She told me Dad was not “born that way.” At 14, he was invited to the home of a church member. The man introduced Dad to the pleasures of sodomy in one visit.
Dad evangelized the neighbor boy, whose parents promptly reported the outrage to my grandparents. Dad struggled in school. He was sent out of state. He decided to work for God. He married.
His “problem” surfaced again, so he told his wife and met with a competent Seventh-day Adventist counselor. Yet “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The “cure” was short-lived.
Dad always believed homosexuality was wrong, biblically indefensible. But he never fully renounced it. Despite loss of friendships, expulsion from school, arrest and jail, divorce...he continued his double life. Now our family has no godly patriarch, only a facade.
“I didn't think what I did should affect anybody else in the family,” he told me. Wrong, so wrong.
Back in the 60s, Mom had no idea who she was courting. He was so wholesome, so involved in church activities, such a proper gentleman. Proper, indeed! When she learned the truth, she stiffened her spine, held her head high and prayed without ceasing.
She slept light at night, fearful for her son. She encouraged Dad to do right. When she was overwhelmed, she might take an afternoon drive by herself, but she always came back. She bore long with him. Nobody guessed her agonies.
Dad remarried. A sweet gal, Bride #2 had read all the right books. She was certain her charms would keep him in line. Seven years untied that knot.
All our holidays were now awkward, all Dad's “friends” were now suspect. Were they also...?
God in His mercy dropped light into my mind, little by little. Scripture contradicted my self-righteous anger.
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever,” (1 John 2:15-17, emphasis supplied).
Is all sin is based on lust and pride? Then I've been guilty in all three categories, I see. Is it fair to be so hard on Dad? What if he were to die unrepentant, still in his type of lust?
“Oh Dad, forget about blaming Mom. Forget about other people's sins. Are you reading your Bible, and living by it? You raised me in church; let's plan for an eternity together with Jesus.”
Why am I crying as I write this? I can hardly see the keys to type! I thought I had forgiven Dad. I have been trying so hard to honor him...with his two realities warring in my head.
“I will never marry a man like my father!” I told Mom, even before she filed for divorce. I could sense his lack of integrity, his spiritual hypocrisy, and I detested his critical spirit.
Mom reminded me I have many good memories of Dad. He helped us raise and train our pets. He took us on fun excursions. He taught us so many practical things. He attended all our school programs. True, all true.
Today, Dad is hungry to stay involved in my life. He often calls to ask if I need a certain thing he had just seen. He loves to send me boxes of goodies. He begs me to call and visit more.
But it is so gut-wrenching to be around him. I don't want to imagine his homosexual life. I hated having to tell my husband what kind of father-in-law he was dealing with.
I distrust Dad's influence on my son and I was hyper-cautious from his earliest years. How much should I tell him about Grandpa, and when?
Why couldn't I have had a godly father? Why is it still so hard to love him, honor him, respect him? Why does he have to be so difficult, dogmatic, hypocritical, such a Pharisee?
“And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess,” (Luke 18:9-12).
Yep, that's how Dad was, exactly like the Pharisees.
“And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted,” (Luke 18:13-14).
Oh no! I'm talking just like Dad, pointing out his faults, thinking I am better because I don't sin like he does (Romans 2:1). But Jesus' parable says I must be a humble, repentant publican for Jesus to justify me. God, be merciful to me a sinner, too.
Now that Dad is old, balding and ailing, the fifth commandment looms large. In the strength of God (Philippians 4:13) I must honor my father in his last years. Who knows what God can do if I keep praying for Dad, encouraging him? And how would I want him to treat me if the tables were turned?
Thankfully, Dad never humiliated us by parading his gay life. He still knows, believes and says that homosexuality is biblically wrong. Romans 1, for starters, is very plain. As the world hardens against this Bible truth, I am thoroughly grateful Dad never twisted the Bible to defend his sin.
Once again, Father's Day approaches. What am I going to do to honor Dad?
Most greeting cards are full of lies I could never sign my name to. Fortunately, I found one emphasizing his handyman, practical side. What about a gift? He doesn't need anything. Why bother?
“God cannot prosper those who go directly contrary to the plainest duty specified in His word, the duty of children to their parents.... If they disrespect and dishonor their earthly parents, they will not respect and love their Creator,” (Adventist Home 293.2).
That's a sobering thought I shall heed. “Just call me sometime, why don't you?” Dad says. I'll check on him more often. And why not send a gift? He loves presents.
“Day by day, and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials here,” says the old hymn. Dad and I used to sing this in church, as a duet. “Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment, I've no cause for worry or for fear.”
My Heavenly Father is the perfection I will never find in my earthly father. He will empower me to truly honor Dad by my life and my intercession. May my days, and his, “be long upon the land” (Exodus 20:12), the heavenly land.
“Hello, Dad? Happy Father's Day! I love you!”
****
Charity Hope is a pseudonym