The Father in our Hearts

Dads don’t always come in perfect packages with bows tied up just right to make us happy. Our Dads weren’t always able to surround us with a veil of protection and security that we so desperately needed. But we can imagine an ideal father…one who loved us just right…and we can take that imaginary Dad and tuck him inside our hearts. There he can hear everything we need to say and say everything we need to hear. We are all so perfectly imperfect people and Dads are no different. But the world is an abundant place and in unexpected places we may just find a few of the missing pieces. It’s up to us to pick them up and hold them close.

Father’s Day is a bitter-sweet day for many of us.  For those who loved their Dads and miss them mightily because they are now gone, for those who struggled to love their Dads and feel ambivalent about their relationship past or present, and for those who never knew the love of a Dad…. with fathers, as with mothers, it is a mixed bag.  We have learned much about what a good father would be, should be, could be from our own and other father figures, from what we have experienced and what we have imagined. Let’s celebrate not only what was, but what is and what might be because of it. It doesn’t always take the real, actual thing to find the blessing in our own lives of having someone who will look out for us and go to the end of the world and back to protect us and love us.