"...and I thought you would call me, 'My Father.'"
Jeremiah 3:19
I seem to have the most compelling conversations at the most unlikely places: my most recent one was in the grocery store the day before Father's Day. I mentioned to the clerk that my family would be gathering to honor fathers.
She stopped counting my purchases and declared, "I don't recognize Father's Day because I have nothing to celebrate." She then told me about her children's apathetic father and her own absent dad. "If anything, someone should give _me_ a Father's Day card! I do everything for them!"
The anger, bitterness and hurt poured from her skin. These father wounds were open, gaping and bleeding profusely.
God tells us to call Him "Father." Indeed, Jesus taught His disciples to address God with this intimate and familial title. Notwithstanding the theological preference for gender inclusive language, Jesus does not neuter God, but puts us squarely in His family and makes us His beloved children. If our earthly fathers have disappointed or rejected us, may we find the comfort, strength and love we need in the fatherhood offered so freely to us by God.
Jeremiah 3:19
I seem to have the most compelling conversations at the most unlikely places: my most recent one was in the grocery store the day before Father's Day. I mentioned to the clerk that my family would be gathering to honor fathers.
She stopped counting my purchases and declared, "I don't recognize Father's Day because I have nothing to celebrate." She then told me about her children's apathetic father and her own absent dad. "If anything, someone should give _me_ a Father's Day card! I do everything for them!"
The anger, bitterness and hurt poured from her skin. These father wounds were open, gaping and bleeding profusely.
God tells us to call Him "Father." Indeed, Jesus taught His disciples to address God with this intimate and familial title. Notwithstanding the theological preference for gender inclusive language, Jesus does not neuter God, but puts us squarely in His family and makes us His beloved children. If our earthly fathers have disappointed or rejected us, may we find the comfort, strength and love we need in the fatherhood offered so freely to us by God.
