(Heaven Serenades are poems that could be read or sung, called Psalms)

 

Father’s Day is coming up next week, so this week I want to reflect, first, on our natural fathers and the roles they play in our lives. Here is an excerpt from a blog written in 2018 entitled, “The Power of Our Father.” GRACE WHISPERS – The Power of Our Father

 

 

 

Over the years, as a counselor, I understand how easy it is for us to make judgments about people without knowing the environment they grew up in or the challenges they had to overcome in their lives. One powerful lesson my Lord Jesus taught me, The Counselor of the Universe, “Tresca, always focus on the root of the tree… behaviors are just the leaves.” With that in mind, I came to understand we are all like little trees planted in our parents’ gardens. Their job is to care for and nurture our spirit, soul, and body so we can grow up as whole and healthy trees to express Christ’s life on the earth.  But what if the child’s father is not present in the home, or if he is, doesn’t provide the right love and care the child needs to grow up healthy but is abusive, distant, allusive, passive, or nonchalant about his duties as a father? What happens to the child?

 

 The Role of the Father

 

Mothers are truly the foundation and strength of many families! In many homes, mothers had to fulfill the role of both mother and father which has been difficult for them to do, because they weren’t created to be a father, only a mother. As designed by Our Heavenly Father, the father’s role is to establish a sense of security, stability, protection, guidance, sense of self-worth, and authority in his child’s life. He is also to declare to his children their identity. He is to demonstrate and impart to them wisdom and what it means to BE the name given to them.

 

My father gave me my first identity. He demonstrated what it meant to BE a TRENT. To BE a TRENT, my father showed me, was to be creative, smart, drift from thing to thing, and person to person. One who defied authority broke the law, smooth-talker, used people with his charm to get what he wanted…one lost soul. He neglected his responsibility to his children by rejecting, abandoning, abusing, and leaving them to fend for themselves. The four of us were part of the sad statistic of fatherless children. (Please note: Before my father died, in his later life, he settled down, remarried, had my younger sister, Tracy, and gave his life to our Lord Jesus Christ).

 

In an article taken from Psychology Today, researchers have shown most children rejected, abandoned, abused, or neglected by their father, even if he is in the home, suffer emotionally, psychologically, and especially spiritually. Here are ways they impact children:

 

• Children’s diminished self-concept and compromised physical and emotional security (children consistently report feeling abandoned when their fathers are not involved in their lives, struggling with their emotions, and episodic bouts of self-loathing) (hatred, disregard for themselves, or the opposite, trying desperately to prove their worth to their father by overachieving, excelling in life, and becoming workaholics).

 

• Behavioral problems (fatherless children have more difficulties with social adjustment, and are more likely to report problems with friendships, and manifest behavior problems; many develop a swaggering, intimidating persona in an attempt to disguise their underlying fears, resentments, anxieties, and unhappiness).

 

• Delinquency and youth crime, including violent crime (85% of youth in prison have an absent father; fatherless children are more likely to offend and go to jail as adults).

 

• Promiscuity and teen pregnancy (fatherless children are more likely to experience problems with sexual health, including a greater likelihood of having intercourse before the age of 16, foregoing contraception during first intercourse, becoming teenage parents, and contracting sexually transmitted infections; girls manifest an object hunger for males, and in experiencing the emotional loss of their fathers, egocentrically as a rejection of them, become susceptible to exploitation by adult men).

 

• Drug and alcohol abuse (fatherless children are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol, and abuse drugs in childhood and adulthood).

 

• Exploitation and abuse (fatherless children are at greater risk of suffering physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, being five times more likely to have experienced physical abuse and emotional maltreatment, with a one hundred times higher risk of fatal abuse; a recent study reported that preschoolers not living with both of their biological parents are 40 times more likely to be sexually abused).

 

• Physical health problems (fatherless children report significantly more psychosomatic health symptoms and illness such as acute and chronic pain, asthma, headaches, and stomach aches).

 

• Mental health disorders (father absent; children are consistently over-represented on a wide range of mental health problems, particularly anxiety, depression, and suicide).

 

• Life chances (as adults, fatherless children are more likely to experience unemployment, have low incomes, remain on social assistance, and experience homelessness).

 

• Future relationships (father absent; children tend to enter partnerships earlier, are more likely to divorce or dissolve their cohabiting unions, and are more likely to have children outside marriage or any partnership).

 

After reading this research data, it makes so much sense, why my life was so out of control even though there were people in my life to love and encourage me; I was missing my father. My heart longed and craved for having love, protection, and healthy authority in my life… every child’s heart does. Because my father sexually abused me and I didn’t realize it until I was in my 50s, I always lived in constant fear of feeling unprotected, needy, and alone. When the heart longs for the acceptance, affirmation, and love of our father, we cover up with layers upon layers of activities, knowledge, and things to make us FEEL SAFE, IMPORTANT, AND IN CONTROL. But it won’t last, so we add increasingly more layers until hopefully one day we get tired and cry out to our Heavenly Father for help… as I did. 

 

We don’t have to continue to wear the masks that we are okay and not having a father doesn’t matter. No matter how young or how old we are, we still long for the love and protection of our father… our Heavenly Father created us this way. In our Father’s Day blog, we will celebrate our Eternal Father who lives within us and is with us forever!

 

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for filling the void in our lives where our earthly father didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t!

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THE LONGING FOR A FATHER

Copyright © 2021 by Tresca S. Grannum

 

In every heart and every soul.

There’s a longing for a father.

One who loves us and always is there for us.

In every tongue, tribe, and nation.

There’s a longing for a father.

 

 

The father’s words are precious pearls for the heart.

They adorn us with grace that never parts.

The father’s embrace is a comforter for our souls.

His words impart wisdom when we are young and when we’re old.

The father’s character guides our way.

And his prayers keep us even if we go astray.

 

 

What a gift to the world it is to have a father.

One who hears our heart, who loves and respects our mother.

What a gift to the world when fathers live in integrity.

Who holds to truth and stands with dignity.

And, what a gift to the world when a father loves his Lord.

When he is faithful and loving him with all of his heart.

 

 

For in every heart and every soul.

There’s a longing for a father.

One who loves us and always is there for us.

In every tongue, tribe, and nation.

There’s a longing for a father.

Thank you, Father God, for being our Loving Father!

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Enjoy Christ, Enjoy Life!