Father's Day

While many of you out there are celebrating with your dads today I know there are just as many who are hurting, lonely, confused, angry, and wishing this day would just go away! For the majority of my life I was in the latter group of people. I dreaded this day and looking at all those cheesy cards just fueled my anger and resentment. I remember thinking on numerous occasions that the greeting card companies should throw in a section for bad fathers. Where do you get a card that says "thanks for never showing up, skipping out on your child support, breaking all your promises, and showing me what kind of man NOT to look for in a husband"? Yeah... pretty sure those wouldn't sell very well.

Of course, I am not still angry, I don't hold on to any of that resentment. My father and I have found a good place where we have a fun and loving relationship. I have found healing and peace through my Heavenly Father. I have found an understanding and a forgiveness for my father and the choices he made. But oh what a long and difficult road it was to get here. We have both cried enough tears to fill the Grand Canyon, and we've yelled and screamed loud enough and long enough to shame a NASCAR race. Getting to a place where we can have a real father/daughter relationship was HARD, and some times I wondered if it would ever be worth it, if it would ever get better, if it would ever stop hurting.

So today, I want to devote my blog to those of you who are still in that bad place. Those of you who don't have a relationship with your father. Those who are still hurting and angry, lost and hurt, those who are wishing this day would just end, who are wishing they could just set fire to every cheesy father's day card in sight. I want to talk to those people today, and maybe speak a little hope and a little love and a little life to them.

I know it's not easy going through life without the support and love we feel we are owed by our fathers. It's not easy when you have this image in your head of what a father should look, think, act, and be like and then the father you get falls terribly short. I know how much that hurts. My childhood was hard. Really hard. My parents separated when I was two. My mother started dating a man when I was four and remarried when I was eight. The first father life gave me walked away. The second father was abusive. And I felt like I was the common denominator in the equation. I fell into a pit of self pity and self loathing. I blamed myself for everything and felt like I was unworthy of anyone's love. I even created an image in my head of God based on the examples of fathers I had seen on Earth.

I did have a couple of really good examples of fathers in my life and I am so thankful for those. Without them you guys might be reading a very different blog today. My grandfather was very involved in my life and he was the most perfect daddy I think any girl could ever ask for. He was kind and gentle just stern and a disciplinarian when he the need arose. He was a wise and hard working man, he was old fashioned and stickler for respect and dignity. The other big influence in my life was my mom's best friend's husband. I called him Uncle Roy and they lived next door to us, less than 100 yards away. He was and still is the perfect example of a Godly man, husband, and father. He is not perfect himself but he lives his life in a just and honorable way. He is devoted to the Lord, his family, and his church [in that order]. He lives by faith and guides by example. He is a hardworking man who will stop at nothing to provide for his family. He is a kind man who would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.

Those two may have been my saving grace, but for many years I felt really confused. I was always told that God was our father and here I had two very different views of the word "father". So I was confused. Which type of father is God? Is he the father that loves and provides for me no matter what? Is he the father that only shows up when it benefits him? Is he the father whose love is strictly performance based? I spent so many years lost and wondering but never finding the answers. I got angry and resentful and turned as far away from God and all of those father figures as I could. I let my life get out of control.

But then in the past few years as I have turned to God and He has turned my life around I have discovered some truths that I want to share with the people who are still out there struggling. God is not like any father you have seen or met here on Earth. God is the original father, the perfect Father, and He intended for men to follow His lead and mirror Him in the fathers that they become and how they love their children. So if you're basing your view of God on any human man you've met, throw that out, forget it. Let's start with a clean slate.

God has promised us that:

• We don't have to worry, He will provide. Matt 6:25
• We don't have to fear, He will protect us. Deuteronomy 23:14
• We don't have to wander, He will guide us. Exodus 15:13
• We don't have to earn grace, Jesus has done that for us. Romans 5:8
• We don't have to fear judgement. Romans 8:1
• We don't have to worry about losing His love. Romans 8:38-39
• We are precious to Him. Isaiah 43:4
• We are never alone, He is with us always and knows us. Psalm 139
• We can do all things through Him. Philippians 4:13
• We are healed through him. Psalm 147:3
• We will be restored. Isaiah 58:11-12

He has promised us all of this and much, much more. He loves us with a perfect and unfailing love. His love never ends, it never gives up, it never runs out on us. No matter what hurt your earthly fathers have inflicted on you, you Heavenly Father is waiting, with arms open wide, to cleanse and heal your heart of all of those hurts and wounds and scars. He will take you and make you whole again. He will love you beyond our human understanding. Human fathers make mistakes, they make bad choices, some of them are down right cruel and evil and do things we could never understand. But your Heavenly Father offers you protection and unending love and acceptance. Will you accept Him this father's day? Will you allow Him to come into your life and your heart and make you brand new? If you are ready, or think you are ready for that, please contact me. Let me pray with you and walk with you as you begin your journey toward Christ and start a relationship with Him. As always, my thoughts, prayers, and love are with you all.

You'll never know unless you ask

I woke this morning to a major shock. I live in a very small southern town where bad news spreads like wild fire in July. So it was only minutes after sitting down with my coffee that I got news of the passing of a close family friend. It is with great sadness and shame that I have to confess... I have known the man for 28 years and not one single time have I ever asked him if he knew Christ. I never took the time to ask him if he was saved. For fear of rejection or that I might offend or anger him, I didn't ask. I didn't approach the subject, even when given opportunities at work or in the community.

He was a good man. He worked hard. He was involved in the community and the schools. He loved his kids with a fierce passion that you don't see from dads as much these days. If he considered you his friend there was nothing he wouldn't do for you. You could call him any time for any thing. I called him once at 11 at night to come and get a tiny little garden snake out of my house because I was too afraid to touch it. He came without hesitation. He was a good man.

But being a good man doesn't get you to Heaven. You can not enter the kingdom on works alone. God can not look upon sin, he can not be in the presence of sin. That is why Jesus Christ came to Earth, the son of God and the son of Man, and lived a perfect life in order to be a perfect sacrifice for us. None of us is able to live a perfect, sin free life. None of us is worthy of spending eternity in the presence of God. But Jesus was and is perfect, Jesus is worthy of eternity seated at the right hand of God. So it is only through Christ's redeeming blood that we are saved.

When you accept that good and perfect gift, that sacrifice that Jesus made for you on the cross, it is like putting on one of those silly tee shirts that says "I'm with him". When you get to the gates of Heaven and the book of life is opened it's like the VIP list at a black tie event, your name is on the list. Before you accept Christ your name is on the 'do not admit' list. The very moment that you accept Christ and are washed in His blood you're a VIP guest in Heaven for all eternity. You get you're "I'm with Jesus" shirt. There is nothing else that will get you in. NOTHING. No good works, no being a "good" person, no amount of volunteer hours or good Samaritan acts will get you there. ONLY Christ's blood will cover your sins so that you can stand before God and enter into His kingdom.

So today I don't know if my friend is in Heaven or not. There is no way of me knowing for sure what was in his heart. So I won't know until I get there myself. But my question to you today is, will you go to Heaven? If you pass today, as unexpected as my friend, will you enter the Kingdom? What about the people around you? Your loved ones? Friends? Family? Co-workers? Even your fellow church members, just because they are in the pew every Sunday doesn't mean they have accepted Christ. I spent years in those same pews with only a head knowledge of God's love for me. Are the people around you saved? If you don't know the answer go today, right now, and ask them. It might be a little scary, it might be uncomfortable, it might even start some very hard conversations, but their salvation is at stake here. Don't let another day go by without asking them.

My thoughts and prayers are with you all, that you might find the courage to do what I never did for my friend.