In his book The Intentional Father pastor and author Jon Tyson encourages men to think about their own fathers and their journey to fatherhood. He writes,

Our fathers were boys once, and very few of them were guided into manhood properly. And then our fathers were still boys when they had to take on the label of “father” to raise us, and many of them didn’t have a clue what they were doing. Have you ever thought of your father as a boy looking for love?

I certainly had not.

It’s important to realize that all of us have complicated relationships with our fathers, whether because of what they did or what they didn’t do. What we have to do is actually begin to view them as men.

Interesting. I found all of Jon’s exercises deeply challenging (in part because my father was not one to ever show much of his inner life) but I thought, ‘Alright, why not’. So I wrote a letter to my Dad in the autumn of 2020.

Recently when Dad was in hospital he was never conscious or very with it when I visited him. Whatever words I spoke to him while he was in a coma or afterwards, I have no real conviction that those words registered with him. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. I can hope but I can’t know.

After Dad died, I came across my letter in one of his many, many stacks of papers. It was a profound moment to re-read the letter. Of course it reminded me of some of the reasons why I was and am grateful for my father. But I was also deeply thankful and comforted to know, with 100% certainty that my Dad knew I was a grateful son. He knew I was a grateful son because I had written to tell him so and he had kept the letter.

I’ve decided to share the letter here for a few reasons. The first is simple enough, it is a way of honouring my late Dad, of sharing the record. The second reason is, perhaps, to give others an example or template of what such a letter looks like. I’d never seen such a letter and in his book Jon gave the barest of clues really. Personally when trying to do something I’ve never seen or heard of before I find it helpful to have at least something to go off. Maybe, if you’re like me in that regard, you’ll find this helpful to you.

The other thing re-reading these letters has shown me is that the language of thankfulness, gratitude, honour can easily be transferred to my prayer life. There’s much here to help me when I think about how I seek to honour my heavenly Father. This counting of my blessings, the earthing of lessons learned, of character formed, of forgiveness and grace received.

I thought the exercise was worth doing when I first did it, four years later my thankfulness has multiplied a hundredfold. I’m glad I took the chance while I had it to honour my father and I encourage you to do the same.

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I’ve copied out the text below the photos in case you can’t see the images or read my handwriting.

Dear Dad,

In a perfect world you should have received this on your birthday. I know how much you appreciate ‘real’ letters so I thought in this era of emails and in this pandemic, a proper handwritten letter would be a nice thing.

The fifth commandment is to honour our father and mother and I thought a letter of appreciation would be timely. This pandemic and your recent health history suggests that we never truly know how much time we have and lots of people live with the things they wish they had said instead of actually saying.

So thank you for raising me in the knowledge of Jesus. For bringing me up to know Him, to read the Bible, to look to the Word for wisdom and guidance. To see what it looks like to serve the church. These things are precious and I certainly hope to pass them on to Noah and Anna.

You both gave me a lot of valuable tools to help us through life. To see that we don’t need riches to be content (just as well), that nature and walking in it are precious gifts, that truth-telling, humility, respect, manners are all important.

We never had much money growing up but here I am at 45 with still not much money but no debts at all. I’m incredibly blessed and rich in so many ways because I learned to manage money and avoid debt. To work hard, pay my bills, save a bit and so on. My kids have a little bit more than I did but they’re already on that same path of generosity and simplicity. That’s quite unusual these days.

There are numerous other examples from the example you have set for me of what it means to be a man, what it means to be a father and perhaps above all what it looks like to be a pastor. I can’t say I always appreciated that final one or that it sometimes seemed to come before the others, but now that I’m a church leader (and have been for almost 20 years) I do appreciate the challenges, difficulties, dilemmas more than I ever did as a child. At root, to serve God and His people faithfully, prayerfully & sacrificially are all examples I saw in and learned from you.

I won’t make this a really long letter but I did want to take the opportunity to say thank you. Thanks for loving God and serving Him, thanks for your prayers, your humility, your kindness and your example. Thanks for taking me to football matches and being so good to your grandkids.

None of us are perfect and we both know that only too well but we also both know there’s an even greater supply of forgiveness and grace. Thanks for having given both of those things to me on the countless times I’ve needed them.

Anyway for all these things that have brought me the riches of character, the security and the confidence of a family that has stayed together and demonstrated kindnesses over a lifetime, thank you.

Of course, thanks to mum as well but that will have to be another letter for another time. This one is from a son to his father.

Thanks for being my dad. I love you.

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