My Father

My Father

"Which of you fathers, if your son [or daughter]
asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?"

As Father's Day comes closer, I look back on how I viewed my father when I was a child. It is not a pretty picture:

My father was a pillar of the community: just not behind our closed doors.
Quick to judge: my father was often angry.
Heavy-handed: we kids were frequently unjustly punished, both physically and emotionally.
Conflictual: my father argued endlessly with my mother. They finally divorced.
Looking for love: my father abused me.

As a teenager, I walked away.

Many years passed by.



Shortly after I married, I walked back into my father's life. Neither of us was the same person we had been in my childhood. Much had happened in the interim:

I learned how to talk to God, saying: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name..."

I came to know that I could forgive my father his wrongdoings, since Jesus had saved me from from my own, by dying on the cross.
I let go of my anger and shame so that it no longer had a hold on me.
I confronted my father and knew that he had changed.

My father, also, learned a lot during our years apart. He was no longer the man I feared. He was no longer the man I had grown up with:

He married a wonderful, giving woman who encouraged him to be all that he was meant to be.
He was remorseful, kind and loving in the truest sense of that word.
He became a terrific Grandpa, even so far as traveling to attend my children's graduations.
He came to know what it meant to be a friend.

As Father's Day approaches, I choose not to look at the past. My childhood is gone now, as are my teen and young adult years. I am well into middle-age and loving it.

No, I will not look back.

Instead,

I look forward to celebrating the joy I find in God, my Father in heaven.

And...

I can't wait to pick up the phone, dial the number and say,

"Happy Father's Day, Dad!"