The Dad Factor

I was doing well (or so I thought) with choosing scripture for this Sunday and it being my first Father’s Day without my Dad. But Steve Bell did it to me again as only he can. He’s so good at saying the poignant and pithy about our humanity in beautiful words.

One of the first times he got me was in a concert at my home church. As the full sanctuary darkened that evening he took a moment to say that people all across Canada were praying for our community after the murder of Tori Stafford and that we weren’t forgotten. People knew we were in pain. I was a mess pretty much immediately at those words, as were many people, and in a good and healing way. We had all been trying to stumble through this horror that we never imagined could come to our city.

Tonight it wasn’t quite as dramatic, but on his podcast Way Stations this week he interviewed Carolyn Arends and they talked about the loss of their parents and the nitty gritty and grace in that experience. And immediately I was back in the hospital room with my Mom at Dad’s bedside having been warned it wouldn’t be long. It brought back the bewildering range of emotions as well as the numbness and practical side of me that surfaced to handle things.

I’ve never not had Dad there for Father’s Day. I’m still trying to decide what I want to do with the rest of Sunday after leading worship. Perhaps it’s very appropriate that, as we talk about God as Father and the one we can call “Abba” or daddy (which I understand is a troubling image for many - thank God we have many ways to come to know our Creator), we will also talk about the strength of the first Christian community in Acts. We will talk about how they repented and were baptized and lived sharing all things in common, eating meals and worshiping together, and caring for each others’ needs.

For any who will find this Sunday difficult for a host of reasons, perhaps this part of Acts 2 will bring you some comfort. Though Jesus died alone on the cross, He really wasn’t alone as the women were there with Him. Repentance and new life are possible out of death. Being with those who have departed from this life is possible in times to come. Community for the widowed, the orphaned, the shunned and the bereft is possible through Christ.

That’s the beauty of the Church at its best and as it was intended. We’re meant to live life together and to serve each other, not ourselves. We’re meant to provide refuge and care, to eat together and offer what we have to those in need. We’re meant to find joy in making God the focus and in worshiping the One Who created us and calls us family.

I’m blessed to have people praying for me who know that this Sunday might be difficult. I’m blessed to pray for those experiencing health issues in their family and who are graduating or changing life path. As we uphold each other we are knit together in Christ. My family extends beyond the biological to the body of Christ who know and cherish me, and I love them right back.

None of us are perfect at loving our families or those in our church. Some of us are far better at it than others. But when we hit it right and risk ourselves in order to love, trying to love as Christ did, we find the sweet spot of life together and we can do what may seem a high tightrope act because of the safety net held out beneath us and the help at either end of that wire ready to catch and embrace us.

I miss Dad. I struggle with where and how to put out the things I’ve kept of his. My grief is unique to me and my relationship to him. To have lost him was hard but a blessing after so much being taken away from him. At times I do feel his presence and God’s presence and the prayers of those who just know I need it.

I’m so blessed. May you also find blessing and the presence of God in and around your own relationship with your Dad, living or dead, and may the peace of Christ fill you with all joy and peace in believing.