Healing

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LEARNING THE FATHER’S LOVE

“Your ability to have a trusting relationship with God will depend to a large extent on the relationship you had as a child with your earthly father.” My heart sank as the Bible study teacher repeated the principle I’d heard expressed many times in my years as a Christian.
It made sense that God would use fatherhood on earth to teach us aspects about our heavenly Father, but did this mean that I was destined to be unable to really know and trust God?
My dad was not a terrible person or father, but I was always afraid of him. He worked hard for little money, and the fatigue and pressure contributed to his frequent loss of temper. My mother, fearful of my brother or I upsetting him, disciplined us with a quiet “I’ll tell your Daddy.” … and most of the time, that was all it took.
Never quite knowing what would set him off, my mother, brother and I carefully watched all we did or said. Having to ask his permission to do something was a major ordeal. After half and hour of butterflies in my stomach, I would barely manage to get the words out of my mouth. Vacations and family times were more often than not spoiled by an outburst of his temper. I never, ever, chose to be alone with him. My mother had explained that he had an anger problem, but, although I understood that, I was not comfortable around him, nor did I trust that he wanted what was best for me.
I believed in my mind that God loved me, as His word said, but I found myself fearing that He would come along to spoil the good things in my life. When I read Proverbs 10:22 that “The blessing of the Lord, it makes rich, but he adds no sorrow to it,” I had difficulty really believing that God would not add sorrow to the good things in my life. I found myself setting up rules and laws for myself, hoping that I’d find the right formula to please God so that He’d allow me to be happy and to have good in my life – honestly, so that God would leave me alone. I pictured God sitting in heaven pondering what tragedy He would put upon me.
When I was thirty-six years old, my mother became terminally ill. She required twenty-four hour care. Doctors suggested a nursing home when they learned that the total responsibility for her care would fall on my dad, who had himself suffered a stroke. Daddy insisted on caring for her at home. Because I lived in a different city, had three children and had just begun a teaching job, I could only travel there on weekends to help.
Since my mother could no longer really communicate, these weekends were the first time I had actually spent time alone with my dad. Anxiety and discomfort overwhelmed me. I did not know that God had lovingly prepared a place and a time for me to learn about His fatherhood. I watched as Daddy took on tasks that most men would never consider – bathing, cooking and feeding her. When I was not there to help, he set his clock for every two hours during the night to check on her, because she literally never slept.
When I came on the weekends, we worked as at team, with me taking the night shifts. What a precious gift God gave me during those weekends! I saw the loving care Daddy gave her. Her suffering broke his heart. He struggled with knowing he would soon lose her. During those weekends, we talked about many things. When he talked about the past, my eyes were opened to where his heart had been during those years. I saw how much he had loved me, although he had failed as a father in so many ways. I saw humility in his ability to accept his faults and past mistakes and go on. Not only was my mind being renewed by seeing these memories through his eyes, but I could feel healing in my spirit. I was a loved and precious daughter! I was home! I was not fearing his responses and finally could begin to allow him to really get to know me. Not only did I see that he only desired good for me, but that he was capable and willing to take charge of a situation which I could not handle on my own.
Daddy even did special things for me like going out to bring me a good breakfast. He went out and bought packages of my favorite candy bars. He tried to protect me from the more disturbing and difficult tasks. I knew that if I couldn’t handle what was happening, that he was there. I did call on him for help.
For weeks, my mother, my dad, my heavenly Father and I walked through the valley of the shadow of death. It certainly felt like that during the long nights watching over my mother, but there was a calm and a peace in that valley.
When Mama died, Daddy and I cried. He held me and said “I’ll take care of you.” And I believed that he would.
Now, as I pray “Our Father which art in heaven” I have joy that I do have a Father in heaven who loves me as my own dad did but infinitely more and without the sin and weaknesses to spoil that love.
During the six years I still had my dad after Mama’s death, my search for Father’s Day cards changed dramatically. In the past, I had steered away from those cards with flowery sayings about wonderful dads, but after my mother died, even the best Hallmarks failed to express the depths of what I longed to say to him.
As my heart wells up in love and appreciation for my dad, how much more does it well up in praise and worship to a heavenly Father who has a place in his heart for me – to whom I am a cherished and precious daughter. “For I know the thoughts that I have toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah 29:11
Although I lost my mother, I gained a father. My dad did not become perfect, but the revelation of the heart of the heavenly Father has become a part of my spirit. Obstacles have been removed and the way prepared to really know God as my Father. I know that I will continue to grow in this revelation as long as I seek to know Him more. I am convinced that God desires to reveal His Fatherhood to each and every one of his children. His first choice is that a loving and godly earthly father will provide the basis for that understanding, but God is not limited. Would He reveal Himself in scripture as a father yet not provide what we need to truly understand? No matter how heartbreaking the background or what the circumstances are, He is desirous and well able to make our lives as whole as if we had always known a father’s love. As Psalm 146:9 says “…He relieves the fatherless.” He has a time and a place prepared to begin that revelation to each person who seeks to know Him. Will he use a change in our relationship with our earthly father? Will he use a spiritual father, a Christian mentor? Will he reveal his fatherhood to a man who is learning to be a father himself? Or will healing come through revelation alone, especially for one whose father has already passed on? I am thankful that God used my own father because my healing impacted his life as well as mine, but the creator of the universe is not limited to avenues our finite mind can imagine. It is His will that we know Him as father so that we can love Him with all our heart and so that we can in turn become spiritual fathers and mothers to others.

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