Guest Post ....

Howdy! I'm Danielle.

Samantha asked if I wanted to guest post on her blog. Her last post about growing up without a father inspired me to summarize that experience in my own life.

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I’m your typical child of a one-parent household. My mom took care of my brother and me on her own for practically our entire childhood. I got to see my dad very few times growing up, and I haven’t seen him at all since 1997.

I have a friend whose father passed away when she was a teenager. We met a few years later, both of us fatherless and little angry at life for it. As my friend and I got to know each other, we talked about the similarities and differences of how we were currently fatherless.

We could both see how we were angry. We saw children with their fathers out in the grocery store or at the park and it hurt. We knew we would never have that. We were fiercely independent, didn’t need a man to wield tools or kill spiders, and we would tell you that we didn’t need a man for anything. We were both needy on the inside, though, and we hated it. But that just fed the anger that kept us going, kept us hacking away at life.

We were different because when we saw a father out with his child, my friend would remember times with her father holding her tiny child hand as she looked up at him, while I would look at this phenomenon and wonder what it feels like to be taken care of by the man who gave your half your DNA. I didn’t understand what it felt like to have a father to go to when I got hurt, while my friend ached for the days when she could cry out, “Daddy!” and he would come running. She learned independence out of confidence in a father’s love; I learned independence from believing the lie that there was no one to come running for me. She was angry because of what she lost. I was angry because of what I never had.

We each agreed the others situation was worse. “I’ve never had a dad so I don’t know what I’m missing,” I would say. “But you will never know what you’re missing,” she would reply. And one day, when I was confused and hurt and lost and crying, she looked into my eyes and said with tears in hers, “I wish I could just give you my memories. Just – here. Here. Take them. You need them. You need to know what it’s like to have a dad.”

Since then, we have never discussed whose situation was worse.

The reality is that I needed a father when I was growing up. But God doesn’t just leave a person alone in their need. He doesn’t shrug His shoulders and say, “Oh well.”

Possibly the most important thing about God to me is how He has taken the place of my earthly father, and how in that capacity (as in every other capacity) He has never failed me. I am not fatherless anymore. I haven’t been fatherless for 12 years, and as I rely on God to be my father, wounds are healed and anger dissipates. It’s not that I didn’t need a father then, but it is so good to have my Heavenly Father now.

Now, when I see someone who needs His love, I understand what my friend meant. I wish I could just give you my memories. I can’t give anyone the benefit of my years spent knowing Jesus as my savior, lord, and father. But I have an option my friend didn’t – I can point them to Him.

And when I see myself forgetting in the midst of my auto pilot life and deeply ingrained desire to “do it myself!”, I draw on those memories of sweet times with my Father. I remember what He has whispered to me during times of worship; I remember how He has seen me through tough times, and I remember how when I cried out, “Daddy!” He came running. And I go to Him.