As I am writing this blog, we are approaching Father’s Day. A day that can be discouraging and disappointing to children who do not have a relationship and/or very littlie communication with their earthly father's because he is absent from their lives for one reason or another..
Fortunately for me, growing up my father was present in the home although he was what some would deem a workaholic. He worked from sunup to sundown. He also played the piano for four different churches and a travelling gospel group so in order for me to spend some time with him I would tag along with him to choir and group rehearsals and to church on Sundays and any other day of the week that he had to go play. But I didn’t mind. As long as I was with my dad. Being with him offered me a sense of security and protection. I felt so special when I was with him. When I was 17 years old, my father passed away and my world was turned upside-down. How could this happen? I hadn’t even graduated high school yet and oh did I mention I was 6 months pregnant with my first child. Yes, I was a child expecting a child and now I had become fatherless. What was I going to do? Who was I going to turn to for fatherly advice on raising my child? Who was going to help guide me through this parenthood thing? Yes, I still had my mother, but I was a daddy’s girl and I wanted my dad to be by my side as I chartered this unfamiliar and scary territory of parenthood. How could God allow this to happen? Didn’t He know that I needed my dad? Daddy was our sole provider. What would we do now? This was a very dark time for my mother, brother, and myself but by the grace of God we made it through. A year after my son was born, his father and I married. We married for the wrong reasons (one of them being just because we had a child together) and the relationship eventually came to an end. There I was, by now, a single mother of three and no clue on how I would manage.
I was saved before I had my first child but I hadn’t developed a relationship with the Lord. It wasn’t until my marriage was on the rocks with it's many challenging and hard times that I began to seek the Lord and His will for my life. My relationship with the Lord grew and I began to know and trust Him to be a Father, provider, and protector for me and my children. He was loving and faithful.
The other day I came across a scripture Deuteronomy 1:31 “There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place”! As I read this scripture I began to look back over my life. This scripture reminded me that in those times when I was afraid, disappointed, discouraged and lost. God carried me through and it’s because of Him I am where I am today. I began to offer a Thanksgiving praise to God the Father for being my father when I didn’t have one and for carrying me and my children through every storm and valley and for being with us on the mountain tops as well.
For whatever reason you and/or your children may have an absent earthy father just know that God promises to be a father to the fatherless and He will carry you through and give you rest, peace, joy, success, protection, and whatever else you and your children need. And in spite of an absent father, I pray that you have had a blessed Father’s Day and just know “He’ll be a fortress (protection, security, not susceptible to outside influence or disturbance) and a place of refuge (the condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, or danger or trouble, help from danger or distress) for you and your children”.
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