Today is Monday.
You know, the Monday after Father’s Day.
The Monday where we all waddle around because we have consumed an overabundance of delicious foods prepared by our mothers in honor of our father’s the day before. The food that is currently sitting in your refrigerator calling your name, saying “I’m even better the next day, waddle on over and try me out!”
The Monday where you go back to your busyish lives thinking about how much fun you had with your daddy the day before, doing all the things that you grew up doing together, reminiscing on all the beloved memories you and your father share and how amazing your father is.
Today is the Monday after Father’s Day.
The Monday where you scroll through your newsfeed on Facebook and see all of the wedding pictures that young and old ladies have posted of their father daughter dances.
The Monday you scroll through the endless posts that are clearly more fit for a novel then for Facebook proclaiming victory of possession of the world’s most
awesomest,
coolest,
greatest,
radest,
spectacularest
DAD. Today is Monday.
Don’t get me wrong, yesterday was very important for all of you. But, for kids like me, Father’s Day is even more important than my PUBLIC display of appreciation and affection towards my….
dad.
You see, for kids like me, we spend THE Monday thinking about:
1. what it would be like to have a mommy and daddy to go visit, or wake up to, smelling the green been casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob and peach/cherry/blackberry pies that were going quite obviously put us in a food coma for hours.
2. how our busy lives would stop ANY day of the year for a day with our dad. The day we spend daydreaming about all the fun we could have had with our dad, had he been around.
3. The day we remember worrying about who would give us away to the man of our dreams or who would teach us how to have fatherly love and if there was a way we could photoshop a really cool looking dad into our wedding pictures.
4.The Monday we don’t have any “likes” for the sweet posts that we couldn’t post the day before about our DAD.
Today is THAT Monday.
No, our dad’s aren’t dead. They just aren’t around. Or, they never were around. Or, like me, they were around long enough for me to experience a Dad
then…
gone…
just like that.
Do you feel sorry for us?
Do you feel sorry for me?
Why am I even writing this?
What a crappy post for a Monday.
Don’t stop reading.
It gets better. I promise.
I don’t want you to feel sorry for us.
Well, I guess I can’t speak for the rest of the daddy-less out there, but, don’t feel sorry for me.
I’m not writing this to make anyone feel sorry.
On the contrary, I’m writing this to make everyone feel blessed.
Because we are.
Actually, those of us that are daddy-less are in some ways
MORE BLESSED,
then all you spoiled little daddy’s girls and boys.
Don’t worry. I’ll tell you how.
Through my own perspective.
It’s Story Time:
I have never known my biological father. I mean, I now know his name. But, it’s just a name. I know nothing about him. I did however, get an adopted daddy when I was born. My adopted daddy raised me as his own. I didn’t even know that he wasn’t my own. But, even if I had, I would have claimed him as my own. He was daddy. He was the only daddy I ever knew. When I was in 7th grade, my parents got divorced, my mother took my siblings and I away from my daddy, and the custody battle ensued. Through a series of events, my daddy got custody of us. I should mention here that I was a mommy’s girl through and through. I loved my daddy, but given the choice, I would have chosen my mommy any day. Being in 6th grade and being completely self-centered and selfish, I grew to resent my daddy for taking me from my mommy. I said mean, hateful, terrible things to my daddy, who was working to provide for my sister and I was just to caught up in the ideas of what I thought was right and wrong, and what was the best for me.
I was a spoiled brat 6th grader….
who turned into a rotten, bitter 7th grader…
who I can imagine was miserable to live with.
So miserable, in fact, that when I was almost in 8th grade, my daddy dropped me off at my grandma’s house, wrote out a proclamation of guardianship to my grandmother on a college lined loose leaf piece of paper, followed by his John Hancock, and, said, “peace out”.
That was the last day I saw Daddy.
That was the last day I heard his voice.
He didn’t die,
He just left.
Gone.
Naturally, at the time I didn’t care. Duh.
But then, Father’s Day came.
Followed by THE 1st Monday.
Then the next Father’s Day.
THE Monday after.
Father’s Day….
Monday….
…….
That One Day…
Followed by THAT day….
You’re still feeling bad for me.
Stop it!
I’ll tell you why now.
Point:
Whether you have had a daddy all your life, and were truly blessed with a father that cares and loves you unconditionally,
or
maybe your situation is similar to mine,
Here is the churchy response.
We ALL have a Heavenly Father that loves us unconditionally and more abundantly than any earthly father could ever even fathom loving us.
And, while that is true,
so is this.
Psalm 34:18.
Go on, look it up. You can even google it.
And, friends, because we may feel completely lost, abandoned, hated, betrayed, unloved,
Jesus is closer to us than anyone else in those moments.
This was my refuge.
Not on the Father’s Day in 8th grade. Or the Monday after.
And, probably not for several Father’s Days or Mondays that ensued.
But, I can sit here, today
married to a godly “young” man,
who is the father of our daughter,
and our child on the way, any day,
and know that Psalm 34:18 is the testimony to my Father’s Days being brokenhearted.
And the Mondays that followed.
You see, for a good portion of my life, I didn’t have an example of daddy. And, for all of my life, I didn’t have a godly example of daddy.
How did I end up as blessed as I am today? With the husband and father-in-law that I have today?
Because Jesus was close to my broken heart.
He knew the perfect band-aid.
I still haven’t talked to my earthly daddy in several years.
I don’t even know how to get ahold of him.
But, I thank my heavenly daddy every Father’s Day,
and the Mondays after,
for being close to me and my broken heart.
And, more importantly,
for not only mending a broken heart by providing me with godly men in my life in the form of Joshua and Steve, and many other’s He has sprinkled along my path over the years,
but for showing me, in an unconventional way, what Father’s Day is really for.
It’s not about how much/what kind of food you can consume. It’s not about bragging rights and competitions for the sappiest Facebook posts.
It’s about God doing His perfect and unwavering thang.
It’s the day your Father is close to His brokenhearted sons and daughters.
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