According to the website www.almanac.com/forgotten-history-fathers-day, in 1909, a woman from Spokane, Washington, named Sonora Smart Dodd felt that fathers should have the same recognition as mothers while she attended a Mother’s Day program at church. After the Mother’s Day church service, Sonora Dobb recognized her father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran who served as a single parent raising her and her five brothers by himself after his wife died giving birth to their youngest child. She wanted a national holiday to honor her father and other men like him.
On Sunday, June 5, Sonora convinced the Spokane Ministerial Association (SMA) and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) to set aside the date to celebrate fathers. She wanted June 5 to be the day to honor fathers because it was the birthdate of her father, but the SMA decided to set the date on the third Sunday of June because they wanted to have more time to prepare their sermons after Mother’s Day, the second Sunday in May. When Spokane, Washington, celebrated the first Father’s Day, some events began: Sonora delivered presents to disabled fathers, Spokane ministers dedicated their sermons to fatherhood, and boys from the YMCA decorated their lapels with fresh-cut red roses—red for living fathers, white for the deceased. The events and Sonora’s celebration were on the path to making Father’s Day a national holiday, but it did not come immediately, maybe because of the parallels with Mother’s Day.
In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed a resolution in favor of Father’s Day so that fathers understand the proficiency of their obligations with fatherhood and so fathers and children establish more intimate relationships. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order to celebrate Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June. In 1972, Congress passed an act officially making Father’s Day a national holiday, and President Richard Nixon signed it into law.
Most importantly, I pray that all Christians will remember God as our heavenly Father on Father’s Day, for He gave those who believe in Jesus’ name the right to be born as His children, not by blood or the will of man and flesh (John 1:12-13, New King James Version). I pray that all Christians give God the highest praise on Father’s Day, for He adopted us as His children through our faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, and may all Christians hear His voice in 2 Corinthians 6:18, where He says, “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters.”
Trials and tribulations have come between fathers and children that cause them to separate. On Father’s Day, I pray that God will reconcile estranged relationships between fathers and children by granting them the spirit to make peace by setting aside all differences and forgiving all grievances they have made against each other. I pray that God will bring a fresh start to their relationship by bridging love, harmony, and unity.
Father’s Day can be a time of sorrow for those who have lost a father or a child by death. I pray that God will allow the holiday to be a day of remembrance for the bereaved fathers and children by remembering and cherishing all the good times they had with them: fathers mourning the loss of their children and children for the loss of their fathers. I pray that He will give them peace and comfort as they grieve by giving them a spirit of rejoicing because Jesus gave a home to their loved ones in heaven, where love, happiness, goodness, peace, and everlasting love reign forever.
Since 1972, America has celebrated Father’s Day on the third Sunday of June each year. Because God gave everybody a father as a gift to help our mothers beget life to us, we as Christians must remember to follow God’s commandment to honor our father, not only on Father’s Day but every day of our lives.—Kenneth Sullivan.