Hope for the Fatherless

I am quite sure there will always be a void in my life on this earth this time of year.  I have spent the majority of my life without an earthly father.  Divorce started it and then conflict, distance and other things finished it over the years.  My relationship with my dad was over.  For years and years, I would pick up that phone and just let it ring with no answer on the other side.  I would hope that something would change to put it on the mend.  Years went by and nothing.  Nothing ever changed.

Sometime during 2011, while I do not remember the actual day, I do remember the call and the pain like it was yesterday.  Someone randomly searched his name on the internet and underneath his name it said died in 2008.  I literally broke down.  How could this happen?  How could he have been gone that long without me knowing?  How did he die with the pain of knowing that I would never again have the opportunity to make things right?  Never having the opportunity to say goodbye.  Never having the opportunity to share his grandchildren’s lives with him.  While he was in my life and had met my first child, he did not even know that I had a second child.  He would never see her beautiful face.

As I searched for answers about his death and the timing of it, the pain actually worsened by me finding out that he had been sick for months before he died with cancer.  Not that it would have really made it easier by it being something sudden with no warning but knowing that he would have had the time and ability to reach out to me and let me know of his illness and did not contact me made that pain greater for me.  The words of the obituary did not even include the name of my sister and I as his children.  Definitely a low point for me.  The rejection was pretty unbearable for a season.

There are lots of things I think that can happen to a person when they do not have a father figure in their life or one that comes and goes.  Some fall into lives of bad choices and pain, some are determined to rise above it and some I think never really realize the true impact that it had on their life and why they are the way they are.

Thankfully during my life, especially as an adult, I have had others that have played that role of a father to me.  First of all, my heavenly Father.  The one who will never fail me and comforts me through anything unconditionally.  No matter my faults.  Beyond that my husband, my father-in-love(recently heard that term and love it!!), my cousin, other relatives and many counselors and friends that I have turned to during my life when I did not have my earthly father to turn to.

Just as you see all the pictures of people posting about their fathers that have been a great influence on their lives, whether still here on this earth or have left this place, there are so many I know that have other types of pain and sorrow with their relationships or lack thereof with their fathers that are probably way more complicated and painful than mine.  I can only hope that those people can see the hope found in our heavenly father that never disappoints.  Never fails.

Happy Father’s Day to all those great dads out there.  And honestly, if you are not a great dad or you don’t have a great relationship with your dad, it is never too late.  Just take the time and watch the movie I Can Only Imagine, and you will see a real-life testimony of a life and relationship changed through Jesus and Jesus alone.  (You may want to bring a box of tissues!) And if it is too late for you to make that mend like me, just pick up and be the best that you can be and know that your past does not define you.  It makes you who you are and you choose what to keep and what to learn from and what to rise above from.

My prayer is that one day I will see my earthly father again.  Until that day my hope is in Jesus.  My creator and my Heavenly Father.