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I began a relationship with my greatest mentor when I was 1 day old. He was the first person in the entire world to ever hold me. And he’s invested in my life nearly every day of the last three decades. He is my Father, Jesse D. Markum (you can thank me later for not mentioning your middle name, Dad).

As it is Father’s Day, I wanted to share with all of you some of my favorite memories of my Dad, and why he matters so much to me:

• “Slicky Boy!”: I have no idea where he got the name from, but it was his pet name for me growing up. He would always call me that after I did something good. It really did make me feel pretty “slick” as a kid, and gave me some kind of manly identity even early on. I don’t know how else to describe it. It just had a special meaning to me. I don’t even know if he realizes how significant this was to me as a boy.
• Baseball: He and Mom coached my first little league team when I was 9 years old. He spent hundreds of hours with me in a big backyard in Georgia teaching me to pitch, throw a change up, and hit a ball. If kids spell love, “T-I-M-E” than few Dad’s ever loved a son more.
• Work: I pushed my first lawnmower at 8 years old beneath my father (who was doing almost all of the actual pushing). At the time, I just did it because I wanted to do what he was doing. But he used it as a chance to teach me good work ethic, taking pride in doing a job, and initiative. Not much older than that, he encouraged me to ask the neighbors if I could mow their lawns too. By the time I was a teenager, I had a lawn mowing monopoly in my neighborhood. But it started with him and the example he set.
• “You’re a real man”: I came from a culture and background that kids and teenagers didn’t drink coffee. Although with the onset of Starbucks and the like, that was slowly changing, drinking coffee was still somewhat of a right of passage in my family. Though I had a cup or two as a teenager, there was one instance that stands out in my mind when I first felt like a peer – adult to adult – with my Dad. His grandmother, my great grandmother, had just passed away in Tulsa, OK. I was 19 and in Bible college, in Springfield, MO. Since my family lived in Fayetteville, NC at the time, only Dad made it out for the funeral. I was there also, since it was only a 3 hour drive from my college town. After the funeral we were at the home of my also-now-deceased great grandfather. When our extended family began taking their usual potshots at each other and making snide remarks, he suggested we get out of there. We sat at a Denny’s for over 3 hours drinking coffee like two men and talking about life, Bible college, girls, etc. Finally he told me, “I’m proud of you, slicky boy. You’re a real man.” He always has had a way of speaking life into me.
• Ordination: Getting ordained as a pastor is a big deal, especially for a 24 year old. My folks were supposedly unavailable to come to my ordination service and since they lived several hours away, I just accepted it. Yet halfway through the service, he and mom came walking in. My Dad preached at my ordination. That whole thing about how he has a way of speaking life into me… yeah, this was a big deal. He and Mom couldn’t stay long. In fact, they had to leave after the service to head back home that night. But the fact that he had made it, and spoke God’s blessings prophetically over my life, and family, and ministry was nothing short of inspiring to me.

To have the blessing of your father on your life so profoundly has been empowering to me. I know he has an acute sense of his shortcomings, as all fathers undoubtedly do. But I’ve always hoped to be at least half the father to my kids that he was to me. Thanks, Dad, for a great example you’ve set. You were always my model of what a real man should be. Happy Father’s Day!

Love,

Slicky Boy