How many of you like to shop? It
could be that you enjoy shopping for groceries, shopping for clothes, shopping
for anything. My husband is a shopper. He is a smart shopper. Clearance is his
best friend. He’s mine best friend too. That Clearance often surprises us with
some amazing gifts. Like the other day, he gave us golf pants that usually
retail for $50+ for only $9.00. We all want friends like that, don’t we?
Unlike my husband though, I am not
a shopper. Not. At. All. I shop to purchase things that I need or want for
myself or loved ones. I don’t shop for the joy of shopping. Its amazing to me
that I not only married a shopper, I raised one. Yeah – Christian is a shopper
too. Now remember, the raising came before the marrying. So that don’t even
make sense. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loathed the shopping
experience. I was my paternal grandmother’s oldest grandchild and for a long
time, her only granddaughter. She loved to buy me dresses and take me shopping.
Punch me in the face. For one, I wasn’t really feeling wearing dresses. I wore
dresses every day to school (St. John the Evangelist) and was sure to wear boys’
basketball shorts underneath. That’s how Julie V. and I got down. Shorts under
our dresses and penny loafers on our feet. Back to grandma. And for two, I
hated trying on clothes. To this day, the fitting room is the devil. I can
barely take putting on clothes to see if they fit. Intellectually, I know that
it makes sense to try out something before you buy it to make sure that it is exactly
what you want. Trying it out prevents you from an extra step of returning it,
exchanging it for a different size, and so on. I know. I get it. But the 5 year
old in me just dreads that room. The fitting room, oh what a terrible creation.
Last week, I was out and about
with the husband and were, you guessed it, shopping. As we were window shopping
(which I seriously believe is a cruel and unusual punishment used to break
people) we came upon a “Fathers’ Day” section in the store. We both looked at each
other, gave a side-eyed smirk and said, “this is sad.” It was the most pitiful
display of gifts and cards that we’d ever seen for a holiday. Eric said, “Y’all
[women/mothers] get big beautiful displays and we get this. Ridiculous.” I had
to giggle because it was true. That display was so sad and did not reflect a
celebration of fathers. Not one bit. It was weird for me to think that I never
noticed that before. I’m sure that every year, stores all over the country
display less than appealing, seemingly left-over items for Fathers’ Day. What
does that say about how we see or value our fathers?
Statistics show that a
disproportionate number of custodial single parents are women with only 17%
being men. Now this does not mean that the other 83% of single fathers and 24
million married fathers have limited or no engagement in their child’s life.
No, not at all. But what it does do is
create a “market” for the economic world to attend to. Women as head of
households and mothers as the most influential parent in a child’s life,
dictates who gets the most attention in the stores. (National Responsible
Fatherhood Clearinghouse, 2013). But why should statistics dictate how we honor
our fathers?
I think because I like being a
gift giver, I never really noticed the limited energy stores give to dads and
how much fathers are overlooked during this special day. Even though my own dad
never wants anything and is the most difficult person to shop for ever in life,
I still put a lot of energy into his gift(s). I’m sure you do the same. And the
great thing about being the gift giver, I don’t have to try on anything! I
don’t have to see if it fits me; but I do make sure that it fits him. Fit. Yeah
– just like I fit him and he fits me.
I, his first born. He, my only
dad. And somehow, even though we didn’t get to “try on” each other to make sure
we “fit,” we are a perfect match. I have his sarcasm, his feet and his salt and
pepper hair (even though his is a little more salty now than before – ha ha).
He tolerates my mouth and counters me with “now listen Gina, listen” every time
I am ready to blow like Mount Vesuvius. I also have his mole, a particular mole
that is in the same spot on me and my brother. Its pretty cool and weird that
we all share that. We also both had his gap too. A distinct feature that looks
great on him; Michael and I on the other hand, just didn’t fair too well with
that feature (thanks for fixing that Dr. Ruby). Yeah. We fit. And we didn’t
even have to try each other out first.
You know that reminds me a lot of
my relationship with God. You know…God, our Father. He sent his son, Jesus
Christ to the earth to die for our sins. He did that before He even knew if we
were “fit” for His kingdom. And truth be told, we will never be fit by our own
standards. We are only fit because of Christ’s blood shed for us, for the
redemption of our sins. Wow! What a gift!?!
I am blessed to have my father
here to celebrate for Fathers’ Day. And I plan to do my best to honor him. You
have some time left before the day arrives. So be sure to put some effort in
and honor your dad or the dads in your life this year. Happy early Fathers’ Day
dad, Eric, Michael, Uncle Joe, Uncle Raymond, Uncle Bobby, Pastor Winfrey and
all my cousins. I love you guys. Proverbs 20:7