For nearly 100 years, families have celebrated Father’s Day honoring fathers, grandfathers and other paternal figures.
Actually, Father’s Day started in 1909. Sonora Smart Dodd, a young person in Spokane, Washington, was listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in church. Sonora’s mother had died in childbirth, and her father, Henry Jackson Smart, a Civil War veteran and farmer, was raising Sonora and her five siblings as a single parent. Sonora decided, then and there, to celebrate a special day to honor her father.
In 1924, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge officially urged Americans to celebrate a national Father’s Day. By 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a Presidential Proclamation, designating the third Sunday of June as Father’s Day. President Richard M. Nixon signed a 1972 bill, making the holiday legal, official and permanent.
Celebrating Father’s Day
Family gatherings fill our calendars, as we scour greeting card stores for Father’s Day cards and gifts to recognize the fathers and paternal figures we love.
How can we make our Father’s Day cards and letters more memorable? What can we include, to make our Father’s Day salutations more special? How about selecting a Bible verse or two to fit Father’s Day?
Father’s Day-Appropriate Scriptures
Choosing personalized passages (Bible verses) from the Word of God is a super way to make a Father’s Day greeting card or Father’s Day gift unique and meaningful.
Are you handy with your computer? How about selecting several Scriptures and printing them on card stock, then cutting them into stacks and constructing a personalized packet of Bible memory cards for Father’s Day? Choose the translation you like best, as you pick out your Bible verses. (Several Bible translations and their online links are listed at the end of this article.)
Perhaps you will decide to create a Scripture bookmark, magnet or laminated bookmark for a wonderful father. If you are particularly crafty, you might cross-stitch or embroider favorite Bible verses onto a Father’s Day throw pillow, eyeglasses case, golf towel, coaster set, baseball cap or other great Father’s Day gift item. |
