I’m sending Father’s Day Blessing out today to all dads - biological, adopted, step, spiritual, surrogate, soon-to-be, wanna-be, single, estranged. My heart is filled with love and gratitude this Father’s Day! I’m especially grateful for my husband Frankie who the Lord used to restore my faith in fatherhood. Let me explain.
I look just like my father and was ‘daddy’s little girl’ until my parents separated when I was in elementary school. My mother, my three sisters and I left what I thought was our happy home in England and returned to the United States without my father. I recall a few sparse visits with my dad, the many unanswered letters I sent my dad and many more broken promises from my dad until I finally gave up hope of ever having a healthy, loving relationship with him. In my childish imagination, I wondered what I could have done to make my dad stop loving me. I recall as an adult crying at the thought of not even knowing how to contact my dad.
Fast forward to 20 years of marriage and 2 children of my own, I was able to visit my dad after learning that he had a stroke. The prior year, I prayed earnestly for manifestation of a word spoken to my husband regarding family restoration and reconciliation. My dad shared from his heart with slurred speech and a sharp mind the reason he had been absent from our lives - he didn’t feel like he had anything to offer us. Shortly after that visit, I returned with my husband and two children who met my dad for the first time as he lay in the hospital dying. I witnessed his frail frame respond to my husband’s powerful prayer in that hospital room. I felt God’s unconditional love for my father which caused my heart to overflow with forgiveness and love.
I’m grateful on this Father’s Day that I was able to really see my natural father - to see him as an imperfect man with his own fears and insecurities.
I’m grateful on this Father’s Day that I was able to witness God’s gracious love and acceptance of my father and to see my dad’s genuine love for God.
I’m grateful on this Father’s Day for the love and care that my husband Frankie has provided our children and for representing well the love of Father God.
I’m grateful on this Father’s Day for being a child of Abba Father (Daddy God) who is perfect in all His ways and who loves us unconditionally in spite of our imperfections.
If your father is still alive and you are estranged, please find it in your heart to do whatever you can do to forgive him from your heart and make peace with him (see Colossians 3:13; Romans 12:18; 1 Peter 3:11).
If you are a father who has been absent from your child’s life, understand that you don’t have to be ballin’ in order to bring some value to them. Reach out and seek to rebuild a relationship with them - adult children still want & need their dads.
If you are a single mother who has deliberately kept your child away from their father because of the rift between the two of you, please consider giving the father and child an opportunity to build / re-build their own relationship. Do not poison your children against their father. Sure, protect them from being exposed to anything toxic or abusive from their father, but don’t withhold the father’s access to his child out of spite.https://youtu.be/n3p6HRuMq6A
If you are a man who has stepped in to be a father figure to a child that you didn’t biologically produce, I pray that God will pour out a special blessing on you!
Whatever your story and your state, God sees you right where you are and loves you unconditionally. He is your Abba Father who is more real than anything in this world. Listen to this song Abba Father by Leon Timbo.
I’m grateful for you and I’m praying for you on this Father’s Day.
Blessings, peace and wholeness,
Regina