The Chapters Before Us

Father’s Day has a way of making me think about things I didn’t understand when I was younger.

Not because nobody explained them to me, but because children have a limited view of the world. They see what’s directly in front of them and assume that’s the whole story.

When I was little, I knew my dad worked at a steel mill. I knew he often came home tired. I knew that after working all night, there were days he would spend hours hauling garbage before finally coming home and staying there only long enough to catch some sleep before heading back to the steel mill again.

What I didn’t know was why.

As children, we rarely ask those questions. We simply accept the life we’ve been given and often take it for granted. The refrigerator has food in it. We have clothes in the closet. Birthdays come. Christmas comes. There are toys to play with and a roof overhead. We just naturally assume that’s how life works.

It never occurred to me that my father was building something he himself had never known.

My dad was one of thirteen children. Just saying that number feels almost unreal to me today. He grew up on a farm under circumstances most people would find difficult to imagine. Hunger wasn’t an occasional hardship; it was part of life. His father struggled with alcoholism. There were times when the children were sent to a children’s home because there was literally no food in the house to feed them all.

The boys had to quit school after the eighth grade because survival took precedence over education. Work wasn’t optional. It was necessary.

Dad never talked much about those years. In fact, the older I got, the more I realized how little he actually shared. Every now and then, a detail would surface—a story, a memory, or a passing comment. He once described how the children would sometimes be “rented out” to neighboring farms to work. He never elaborated beyond that, and I never pressed him. He usually shared things like this only to drive home a point he was trying to make to my brother or me.

Looking back, I wish I had asked more questions. Not because I needed more facts, but because I think there was a whole person there I never fully knew. I’m not even sure he would’ve wanted to talk about it or share it with us. Perhaps some memories were simply too painful to revisit very often.

As children, we know our parents as parents. That’s their role in our story. We see them through the narrow window of our own experience. We know what they packed in our lunches, what rules they enforced, what chores they assigned, what television shows we could watch, and whether they let us stay up late on special occasions.

What we often don’t know is who they were before we arrived. We don’t know the fears they carried, the disappointments they survived, the promises they made to themselves when nobody was listening, or the wounds they quietly determined would stop with them.

It took me years to realize that every long shift my father worked was part of a promise he had made long before I was born. He wanted something different for his children. Not extravagant. Not luxurious. Just different.

He wanted enough food in the cupboards, enough clothes in the closets, and birthday presents and Christmas gifts that were ours alone. Those are the simple things that become precious when you’ve lived without them.

As a little girl, I saw a man leaving for work.

As an adult, I see a boy who knew what hunger felt like.

And somehow that changes everything.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that one of the great surprises of adulthood is discovering that our parents had entire lives before we ever entered the picture. They had entire chapters filled with struggles, victories, mistakes, heartbreaks, and dreams that shaped the people who eventually became Mom and Dad.

Sometimes I think Father’s Day isn’t just about honoring our fathers. Perhaps it’s also an invitation to become curious about them, to ask a few questions, to listen a little longer, and to wonder what stories remain untold. Because there comes a day when we would gladly trade an afternoon of our time for one more conversation with someone whose story we never quite finished learning.

And for those of us whose fathers are no longer here, perhaps Father’s Day can be a gentle reminder that love often leaves fingerprints in places we don’t notice until years later.

Sometimes those fingerprints look like character. Sometimes they look like work ethic. Sometimes they look like perseverance. And sometimes they look like a full refrigerator, a warm home, and Christmas mornings that seemed ordinary at the time, until years later when we finally understand what they cost.

If this Fireside Chat warmed your spirit and sparked fresh resolve to live what you believe, fan that flame with Scripture—“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). Pull a little closer to the Light, and carry it into the week ahead.

👉 Sign up for the free FAST Crash Course in Bible Memorization: http://fast.st/cc/21419