Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

I don’t know who wrote these little storybook verses remembered from my youth, but they go something like this:

Only a dad with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Toiling and striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come home and to hear his voice.

Only a dad, but he gives his all,
Smoothing the way for his children small,
Doing with courage so stern and grim
The deeds that his father did for him.
These are the lines that for him I pen,
Only a dad – but the best of men.

Brethren, even when we are not “the best of men,” even in our limitations and inadequacy, we can keep making our way in the right direction because of the encouraging teachings set forth by a Divine Father and demonstrated by a Divine Son. With a Heavenly Father’s help we can leave more of a parental legacy than we suppose.

One new father wrote: “Often as I watch my son watch me, I am taken back to moments with my own dad, remembering how vividly I wanted to be just like him. I remember having a plastic razor and my own can of foaming cream, and each morning I would shave when he shaved. I remember following his footsteps back and forth across the grass as he mowed the lawn in summer.

“Now I want my son to follow my lead, and yet it terrifies me to know he probably will. Holding this little boy in my arms, I feel a ‘heavenly homesickness,’ a longing to love the way God loves, to comfort the way He comforts, to protect the way He protects. The answer to all the fears of my youth was always ‘What would Dad do?’ Now that I have a child to raise I am counting on a Heavenly Father to tell me exactly that.”

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1999/04/the-hands-of-the-fathers