To all the Dads out there, who are ‘hands on’ and involved with your children’s lives, who are loving and supportive, I stand and applaud you!!! I hope you know, how truly special, and important and rare you are! I hope that you are surrounded by love and support and encouragement and are receiving all the respect and honor you deserve. We’ve never met, yet, I know you are out there, and I thank God for you.
Many years ago, I was confronted with my own blindness. For about eighteen years prior to that time I had built quite a case against my father. I had front row seats to his shortcomings and failings. I saw how his behavior hurt my mother, her sister, angered his first born, cripple my other brother, and wound me so deeply, it took a supernatural power just to remove the layer of debris that covered it all.
I could recall in detail his movements and words and even the moment my “Daddy” fell off of the pedestal I labeled, “Hero”. I sat all of eight years old in his lap, having my face ‘scrubbed’ by his coarse prickly beard. This was suppose to be funny and affectionate, but for me it was painful and insensitive. I was brought to the hospital where he was recouping having drunkenly driven into a telephone pole the day before. I imagined that his beard was comprised of the splinters from that pole. One night, my parents argued, my father left and I was led to my mothers ’67 Chevy Impala in order to drive to some mysterious bar and spy on him. Another covert mission found his car parked at an X rated theatre downtown. It disgusted me to my core and I felt anger in defense of my sweet mother. The pedestal was throughly dust.
There was always an atmosphere of loneliness, anxiety and anger in my childhood home. My mother, a painter and seamstress,sewed away her days in this suburban prison. She always seemed to be ‘somewhere else’ perhaps deep in thought of the life she could’ve had apart from our father.
In 1974 my mother passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. It devastated my brothers and I. A week after her funeral, a cheap affair and a military plot, my father stumbled into our apartment after a night on the town with a strange woman. At the end of that school year my father moved to another city and we parted ways. I could not imagine another minute with him.
My dear brother Joey, was taught by him to drink beer starting at age 12 and became my father’s drinking buddy. He moved onto marijuana and other substances but by age 47, it was actually the nicotine that killed him. My older brother Vic was a business owner, workaholic, and inherited my mother’s good sense of humor but my father’s bad temper. As his daughter, I missed the swing of the belt fueled by his anger several times and once endured a tongue lashing and name calling that no fifteen year old deserves. The man terrified me. Something I took with me until he passed away in 1988.
So, when the two ladies I was praying with told me, I needed to repent, it came as a blow. I felt so justified in my hatred of him. Clearly, he had affected each of us in the worst ways possible. But as the Holy Spirit impressed their minds, they showed me in Scripture where God requires that we honor our father and our mother. By the amazing grace of God, I was able to repent of my hatred of him that day. I wrote a song called, “The Day my Dad Became my Friend”. I was honored to be able to sing it for our women’s group at church. Hearts were touched, tears fell, healing came.
It was an act I had to walk out many times. Forgiving him for the pain he caused, the healthy relationship my siblings and I never had with him. Asking God to forgive me for my hatred of him.
We grow older, and we discover our weaknesses are so similar to our parents, and we can finally say, “we understand now”. We gain insight and mercy as we face our own shortcomings.
Miraculously, as a young 8 eight year old swinging on my swing set in the back yard, I sang my songs to God. I was not born again yet, but somehow I knew God was real. There in the midst of loneliness and sadness, I knew my God was real, faithful and loving, all the things I never felt with my earthly father. And it was more than just a believing in order to escape my own disappointment. I knew God was not like my father. I thank God for anchoring me in the knowledge of His exsistence.
This Fathers Day, my earnest prayer is that you will feel the closeness of your Creator, the love of your Savior and everlasting arms of your heavenly Father. May the balm of Gilead warm your heart and heal the wounded places. To the only One I know that can do that kind of miracle… in Jesus Name I pray, Amen and Amen.
Wishing you a happy and joyous Father’s Day! ❤
heartpeace 