I KNEW YOUR FATHER
When I was in college, I lived with my grandmother. She was the secretary at the Logan Institute of Religion. When any of the 20,000 students approached the front desk, they were greeted by this vivacious, graying redhead, with a warm smile that made them feel instantly that they were best friends.
The first day of every institute class, I received the same reaction from my teachers. “You’re a McKenna! Are you related to Joanne McKenna? When I replied that I was her granddaughter, I was instantly the favorite student in the class. Occasionally, the tone softened, and I heard, “I knew your grandfather.”
My grandfather had been a teacher at the Logan Institute 18 years before. He died, at age 49, 5 months before I was born. When someone said, “I knew your grandfather,” I felt that I was valued for the piece of me that connected these wise teachers to a man they loved and respected.
I often wonder what life was like for my father, entering fatherhood just months after losing his own father. My mom often tells of how, as soon as I could toddle, I would sit on the steps outside our apartment and wait for dad to come home from school. I would sing the words you all know so well, “I’m so glad when Daddy comes home, glad as I can be.” And I would clap my hands with joy!
In birth order theory, the oldest child chooses either the mother or the father to emulate. While consciously, I just want to be a great mother like my own, my subconscious patterns life after my father. Or, as another beloved Primary song goes,
When I am in a hurry, my handwriting is his. I have his nose, and the same very large freckle. Some of the ways I consciously want to be like my dad?
I want to be like my dad in the way he loves the Lord. Because of that, in everything he does, he wants to share the goodness of the Lord with people. When our daughter was baptized this past February, my Father stood at this pulpit during fast and testimony meeting. I hope you could sense the power of his faith. Dad and I do family history work together. I just do a little bit, but He devotes over half of his waking hours to seeking out our ancestors. There may soon be a reduction in these hours, however, as last week, all of my siblings gathered in Texas, where he and mother opened their mission call to serve in the Armenian/Georgia mission.
I also want to be like my dad in the way he loves people. As a young bishop he was every young man and woman’s best support. As a stake president, you knew he loved you. As the director of humanitarian aid for the church, he was devoted to serving in the Lord’s way. As a friend, my dad was a President Monson: for the poor and needy; the widow; for the lonely at their death beds. He gave in wisdom, but generously, without a second thought.
Finally, I want to be like my Dad in the way he loves his spouse. Each day when Dad would return from work, he would stop at a certain spot in the hallway, and stoop from his 6’4” position to kiss my mother at 5’2”—for far too long. My siblings and I would cringe, but I began to appreciate it, as my friends in high school would enviously comment that they had never seen a couple so in love. David O. McKay, the 9th president of the church, said that “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
I am so very blessed to have been born of goodly parents in many ways. But what do we do when the faith of our fathers is false? Abraham had this problem. His fathers, “having turned from their righteousness, he “sought for the blessings of the fathers, in this case, his righteous ancestry, the traditions of Adam, Enoch, and Noah. He was seeking for the rights of the priesthood. He was seeking, because he felt the lack. In Abraham 1, verse two Abraham realizes there is a potential for “greater happiness and peace and rest (available) to (him) with the blessings and rights of the priesthood. Abraham went to the Lord, and the Lord answered. Have you ever felt a need for greater happiness and peace and rest?
These blessings are available to everyone. The covenants that begin at baptism and that culminate in the temple sealing are our key to “receiving (that) greater happiness and peace and rest.” I have found that for me, these blessings come in increments, and as I ask the Lord for them, either the capacity to see them, or through my increased capacity to handle them, these blessings of happiness and peace and rest come with abundance.
But sometimes we just need a father in our lives. My father-in-law became the man of the family at age 11. When he grew up, and was called to serve a mission in the Netherlands, he was thrilled. His parents were both born there, immigrating as young adults to the United States in the wake of WWII. At his first mission conference, he sat nervously in the chapel, wondering what to expect. A man on the stand was staring at him. He avoided eye contact for a few minutes, but the next time he caught his eye, the man motioned him to the stand. He wondered which mission rule he had already broken. The man asked his name. He said “Matthew Asmus,” (this brother Asmus is a Jr). The man said I knew your father. The man was Elder de Jager, THE Dutch general authority, much loved and respected by the Dutch people.
When the meeting began, and Elder de Jager rose to speak to the missionaries, he asked Elder Asmus to stand. He proceeded to use the majority of his time sharing about the great work Stevanus Asmus had done for the Dutch people as a church genealogist. Matt Sr., who had become fatherless so young, raised without many of the privileges that might have been his, had his father lived, instantly had the admiration and respect of the entire mission. Elder de Jager became a father figure for my father-in-law. The Lord provides.
When I married Brother Asmus, I too was adopted into the Dutch heritage. A favorite young women leader of mine growing up, Audrey Paulson, is also Dutch, and we have bonded over this shared heritage over the years. She gave me a set of Delft Blue salt and pepper shakers for my wedding. She has also collected wooden shoes that she gave to my children, so we could all have shoes to set out for Sinter Claas day, the Dutch Christmas. Just before we moved here, I was visiting with Audrey, mutually rejoicing in all things Dutch, when the idea popped into my head to decorate my new home with Dutch art. I shared this idea with Audrey, and by the end of the day, she offered me two large and beautiful paintings of original Dutch art, that now hang in my home. Audrey Paulson is Elder de Jager’s daughter, and the paintings once belonged to him. “And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers;”
There are many things in life that I completely don’t deserve. These paintings are among them, along with the heritage of the faith of my fathers, but having Brother Asmus, as the father of my children feels like the luckiest thing ever. He is not only the fun dad, who makes our children “so glad when Daddy comes home,” he also has a gift for loving their mother, for which I am grateful every day.
I also feel so humbled to bear the gift of the spirit to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. When I was baptized, I received a necklace that says, “I am a child of God.” I was wearing it, as an adult on vacation, when I wandered into a shop, empty, except for a woman in native African clothing. The woman looked thoughtfully at my necklace and said, in stilted English “That’s true. You are a child of God.” And I looked at her and said, “It’s true for you too.” And we connected for a moment in recognition of the sisterhood we shared before we came to earth. It was as if we said, “I know your father, and that is all I need to know to know and love you too.”
I testify that the Father of our Souls has greater happiness and peace and rest for us, and that as we try to be like him every way, that, through His son, Jesus Christ, we can be.