You'll be glad you read it.
Father's and Mother's Day are the most difficult days to be the speaker in Church, at least, for me, this is the case. This is not because of my own challenges (I could speak for hours about my amazing father and the person he is), yet, due to the challenges of those I am responsible to deliver a meaningful message to, those who consider attendance at Church on these two days extremely challenging.
When I am asked to speak, I am keenly aware that emotions run the highest highs and lowest lows as people attend Church Services on these two day. With the desire to say something uplifting, meaningful, and encouraging, my mind and heart race over the multitude of thoughts and feelings that need to be acknowledged.
Many people come from seemingly stellar families with an endless supply of support, others have ambivalent feelings, and yet, too many others have pain, anger, and sorrow bubble to the surface as they attend Church Service on Fathers and Mothers Day.
The article below was in The Palm Beach Post on Friday, June 19. Just in time for Fathers Day weekend. As you read it, I am certain you will see why I recommend every person read it and then re-read it. The message applies to so many relationships.
If you have some fences that need mending...you may have the strength and courage to reach out and make the first move toward healing.
If I were the speaker this Sunday (which, I am not) this article would assist me in giving words to the thoughts and feelings I would want to say for those who attend Father's Day Sunday Services with a heavy heart.
A Lost-and-Found Father
By Rhonda Swan (The Green highlights and italics are added by me)
Palm Beach Post Columnist
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I am responsible for what I see. I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.
I could see peace instead of this. The past is over - it can touch me not.
This instant is the only time there is. Today I will judge nothing that occurs.
I am never upset for the reason I think.
Forgiveness is the key to happiness.
- Hugh Prather-
Finding the perfect Father's Day card always has been a challenge.
Most depict idyllic father-daughter relationships that weren't my experience.
My dad left our family when I was 8. The memory of his departure - my mom, my four younger siblings and I huddled together, crying, as he walked out the door - will forever remain stored on my cerebral hard drive.
It was far from a Hallmark moment.
And it would take 35 years for my dad and me to dissect that memory.
During those intervening years, I would come into adulthood unaware of the enormous impact of his absence.
Loss and abandonment are difficult for children and adolescents to articulate as anything other than anger and sadness.
The subconscious is amazing. Once you've lived with those feelings long enough, they become as normal a part of your existence as breathing. The mere suggestion that you might have "issues" because of those feelings seems ludicrous.
I had accepted the fact that my father and I didn't have what I considered a meaningful relationship. It was what it was. I loved him, and I knew he loved me. And that was good enough.
Sure, as a child I resented the fact that quality time was a concept about which he seemed to have little knowledge. But that was then. I was over it.
I was grateful that every year my dad took the time to bring my siblings and me to our family reunions. We established close relationships with long-distance relatives, and we learned the meaning and value of extended family.
So I was capable of seeing and appreciating the good.
Issues? Me? Whatever!
OK, so he remarried and had another family. Again, that bothered me as a kid. But that's ancient history, now that I have a family of my own.
Denial? Not me!
Or so I thought.
It would take a relatively insignificant incident on a Thanksgiving Day three yeas ago to open my eyes. In the middle of a rant over the perceived slight, I had an epiphany. I wasn't upset about what was happening in that moment but what had happened in the past. After years of believing that I was over it, I discovered that I wasn't.
"Wait a minute," I said to my dad, mid-tirade, "we don't need a meeting to work this out. We need a meeting to work us out."
That meeting was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.
No blame. No drama. Just questions. And honest answers.
As a result, I was able to forgive my dad, recognizing that he did - as we all do - the best he could at his level of awareness. I realized that I could go back to the future. Being an adult didn't negate my need for a relationship with my dad.
And it was only too late if we let it be. I couldn't have the relationship I felt that I had missed out on as a child. But I certainly could have something much more meaningful than what unconscious pain and resentment had thus far allowed as an adult.
For my birthday, my dad gave me a copy of one of his favorite books, A Course in Miracles.
The Course says: "Grievances darken your mind, and you look out on a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light."
With Father's Day coming Sunday, the one thing for which I'm most grateful is that light. It's allowed me to see and accept my dad's love and wisdom and freely give my love in return. Ours is not an idyllic relationship. But it's one worth treasuring just the same.
What do you think?
This article applies across the board to relationships,
do you agree?
Are Mothers and Fathers Day difficult for you?
What about speaking in Church on those days?
Happy Father's Day Weekend!
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