Reflections on Father's Day and Fatherhood

Today is Father's Day. My dad passed away in 1994. I have many happy memories of him. Some are not as happy. I would say in a zero to ten rating he would receive an eight in my books. I have memories of lots of fun and activities when I was a child. My father was mostly a happy person. He worked hard to support me and my mother. People liked him, and I remember thanking God for the parents that I had. I always felt loved and the center of their lives. 

I cannot say that my father was perfect...but then what person is perfect? Only God is perfect. We are expected to do our best and to grow and learn from what live gives us. The main thing I remember about my dad that was a challenge to me was his habit of sarcasm. Some synonyms for sarcasm are irony, mockery, cynicism, mockery, disdain, and scorn. When I think of sarcasm I feel that all of the synonyms are included in that word. My dad thought he was being funny, but sometimes he was not funny.

The trouble with sarcasm is that most of the time it has some truth in it. That can be painful to hear when it is spoken in the way that sarcasm is spoken. It can be hurtful and cause harm that remains with a person for a long time...even a lifetime. My dad had a good heart, and I believe he had no idea of the reality of the effect his "jokes" sometimes had on me and also on others. All of this said I still look on my dad as my hero and someone who always had a goal of doing the best for me and my mother.

Overall I have memories to be treasured. I had a happy childhood.

Fast forward to my family. I have three adult children and three grandchildren. When my oldest son thinks or speaks of my Dad it is not happy memories. He remembers the sarcasm and his wounds from it. And when he finally tried to deal with it with his father and me his final assessment was not favorable. He did not like it that we left him and his siblings with a person who he felt to be abusive. I can see his point, but it is heartbreaking to me. I feel like my husband and I failed our children in this regard. My son carries damage in adulthood from this. I also have a hard time adjusting to the idea that it is not acceptable to my son to talk about him since my evaluation of my Dad is not his. I feel robbed in a way to have this constraint on me even though I know that my son's claims have reality in them.

Still I think of Dad and remember the happy times. They override the times that were not so great. My son is locked into the paradigm that his grandfather was not who he thought he should be.In church today Pastor gave a message about fathers. His thought was that some fathers were all they needed to be to raise happy and healthy future adults. Some were not bad but there were cracks in the perfection mirror. Some fell short completely and provided no role model for their children. They were not the protector that a parent is supposed to be. They were abusive to their children. They just were not Godly fathers.

The final kind of Father...the One who could give us all that we need, protects us, and loves us so much that He considers us His children. That FATHER is God. We can fully rely on Him. He brings us a divine influence that is irreplaceable. It is well to remember that when Jesus was giving us a template of how to pray, He spoke a prayer that began with "Our Father." (See Matt 6:9) In this we God identified Himself as our Father. That means that in spite of whatever influences of our Dads, we have a perfect Father in God.

In Psalms 44:1-3 we read what God our Father has done for us through the ages...the gifts of our Heavenly Father...

    All our lives.
Our fathers told us the stories
    their fathers told them,
How single-handedly you weeded out the godless
    from the fields and planted us,
How you sent those people packing
    but gave us a fresh start.
We didn’t fight for this land;
    we didn’t work for it—it was a gift!
You gave it, smiling as you gave it,
    delighting as you gave it.

                                         The Message

The following is a link to our Father's Day devotional by Jan Andersen. I think you will find it interesting...
             http://paintgodintoyourday.blogspot.com/2013/06/heavenly-father.html