Sunday, July 21, 2013

A Father's Love

Over the past month or so I've heard a couple people talk at different venues about how God describes Himself as "Father" and how sad it is that in today's world so many kids don't understand that example because they don't have good examples of fathers for themselves. Their own fathers are bad examples because either their fathers were just sperm donors and they never knew him or because they were abusive or just absent--even if they were physically present. 

I am one if those kids who fit in that profile. My parents were never married and my mom left my father when I was an infant.  And he never made any effort to keep in contact.  I looked him up when I was 21 and we met.   I don't know what I was expecting.  But things didn't work out and I didn't keep in contact with him.  

So as I started getting into my faith, I did have difficulty understanding what what "a father's love" meant because I didn't think that I had ever really experienced it.  But upon meditating upon it I realized I had.  

First of all, my biological father may not have been there for me but there were several men in my life who were father-figures to me.  Primarily my grandfather who I lived with while growing up.  But I also had six uncles who all provided examples of fatherhood to me and even though I was just a nephew they loved me and took care of their baby sister's little boy.  Finally my babysitters husband, Kenny Harris, was another man who was like a father to me.  So, I may not have grown up with a biological father but I was better off--I had eight men in my life who showed me what it meant to be a man and to be a father. 

Secondly, by the time I really started getting into my faith, I was a father myself.   In fact, the reason I came back to the Catholic faith was for my children---- because I wanted them to know God's love.  So, I knew what a father's love was because it was what I felt for my own children.  

Finally, I knew what it was because I had felt God's love for me.

The are some who don't believe we should use the analogy of a "Father's love" because of the fact that so many people don't have father's of their own.   They have even tried to turn God into a woman and into a more motherly role.  

I think this is a mistake----not to take anything away from mothers.   But if God describes Himself as a Father---calling Himself "Abba" or daddy---then who are we to challenge that.   It is wrong to change scripture to fit our agenda. 

And in the end---maybe it is for the men in the world to mold ourselves into that example of Fatherhood that God has set for us instead of changing what He said.   We should show a Father's Love to our children....tender, stern, loving, forgiving, merciful, and fun.   All of the deadbeat dads in the world need to look at God as and example of what they need to be or transform themselves into that roll. 

2 comments:

  1. It's been interesting for me growing up since my dad and mom divorced when I was 8 and I was basically abandoned by my father since he was my whole world and he lived in Rhode Island and other various east coast places while I was still in Kansas. So he wasn't a part of my every day life for the last 10 years of my childhood.

    I like this post and I agree...

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  2. I also agree however I was lucky, even though my parents divorced around the time I was 9 they always worked together to parent me and my brother. Even when my father remarried they all three worked together with my biological mother even "adopting" my step-brother as another of her boys.

    At time when I was younger I would have possibly disagreed with you about my father but that was my own issues with my parents divorce. Kind of like people throw hissy fits with God and turn from him as our father I did the same to my earthly father.

    As I got older I realized how lucky I was to have a father who understood what I was going through as a child and despite how rotten I may have been was still there for me when I needed it and stern with me when I needed that as well.

    I currently work in IT for an non-profit social services agency that deals with young kids and all their issues ranging from bad families to drugs and violence. In the vast majority of the situations the fathers are either absent or totally destructive to their family units. I wont say that the mothers are always perfect either but if the fathers stood up, shouldered their yoke as fathers and did what they should I bet a lot of these families and kids wouldn't end up in the situations that they do.

    I feel sad for this world to see that this is becoming more and more of a common and accepted thing that parents are absent from their kids lives more and more and they depend on other people and things (internet, phones, games, FaceBook) to be a parent to their kids.

    My wife and I have our first child due in September, a little girl. I don't claim that I will be the best father in the world but I have a few great examples (my father and grandfathers) to draw from and to ask questions of. And of course there is always God to approach in prayer. I am looking forward to getting to be a father to her and I just cant fathom how so many other men these days take this responsibility so lightly and toss it off as if a dirty shirt.

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