Father’s Day, 2024 – 5 years since my earthly father passed (posting this morning from the great state of Washington without my laptop. If you notice errors please bear with me, posting from the phone is a challenge. I will edit and add links ASAP).

I wish this morning was harder. I wish this was as hard as Mother’s days are.

But it is not – not by a long shot.

People make choices and live the lives they want to live. Meanwhile, the rest of live in their wake…making our own choices.

We cannot help that their choices influence our choices, but ultimately our choices are OURS.

And we, along with the people we’ve asked into our lives, have to live in that reality.

My theme the last couple weeks has circled around the idea that what we think about oursleves, positive or negative, is largely due to the impact someone else has had on our life and what we do with those thoughts.

The main idea being, what God says about us is infinitely more important than what others have said or the lies we repeat to ourselves.

For many, those thoughts, ideas and lies were given to us by our fathers.

On a day like today, where we honor our fathers, it breaks my heart that I cannot earnestly wish to spend even one more minute with my father – it sucks to say this, but I never had a “dad”.

I am a bit envious of those of you that have that. Tell that man you love him!

I pray, often, that my kid dosen’t grow to feel that way about me.

So, because I believe that even in the bad, God can make it good – see Romams 8:28 (link to be added) and that even people’s bad intentions can be used by God – see Genesis 50:20 (again, link to be added) the lessons I learned about what NOT to do as a father are just as valuable.

The beautifully amazing thing is that NONE of the struggles I have had with the man that I could only refer to as “Pop” were a surprise to God.

God called me to him when I was 9, so I have had my perfect heavenly father for most of my life.

And knowing what he knows, he placed me in a situation where I would have access to Godly fathers and “fathers to be” who have helped me work through some of the things that “Pop” was never around for.

I am greatful for God and the dads he’s given me, the positive and the negative.

So, celebrate your fathers today, whether by birth or circumstance, and remember our heavenly, the ULTIMATE, father, The LORD our God.

I’d love to chat about your experiences with your father’s, the good bad and the ugly. We can process together.