SHEA PATRICK | CONTRIBUTOR

As I work on this blog post, Mother’s Day just passed. I saw many things on social media celebrating mothers, but also saw the mixed feelings the holiday brings about. I imagine many people have a similar feeling about Father’s Day. A group of my friends and I no longer have fathers here on earth and we often discuss how difficult the day is for us. What do we do with these mixed feelings? Get angry at those who are celebrating? Blast our frustration with God’s plan for us on social media? In contrast, the death of my father is one of those milestone moments in my walk with God— an Ebeneezer reminder of how God cared for me when my dad died.

A Hard Grief

I still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the phone call came. My dad was dead at sixty.  He had just retired eight months before and moved into his dream house with my mom. I just could not believe that it was true. I was in shock. I think the entire first year I lived in disbelief. All the firsts came and went – Father’s Day and his birthday. I also had a one-year-old who turned two six months later—another first where I felt the absence of my dad profoundly.

The second year was the hardest for me by far. I think it took the first year for me to really understand the reality of my loss, for my dad’s death to sink in. I often woke in the middle of the night from terrible dreams, only to realize the loss of my dad wasn’t a nightmare; it was all too real. I spent those nights crying out to the Lord in desperate prayer. Every time I was at my parents’ house, I expected him to come around the corner. It was painfully hard to adjust to life without him here. But it was during this period that I really began to understand God as my Father as he showed his fatherly care for me.

Comforted by God’s Word

God’s word came alive to me in ways that it never had before. I was in desperate pain and nothing on earth would fix it. In my desperation, I turned to God’s word, specifically in the Psalms. My grief seemed the rawest and most difficult at night. When my sorrow woke me in the middle of the night, I would repeat snippets of God’s word to my heart.

I was brutally honest with my feelings. I echoed the words of the psalmist in Psalm 6: “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eyes waste away because of grief” (v.6). I knew the Lord already knew the depth of my sorrow and I could go to him with that pain.

The Psalms also comforted me with reminders of who God was for me in my overwhelming grief.

“For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.

You will not fear the terror of the night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
nor the destruction that wastes at noonday” (Ps. 91:3-6).

I also rested in his promises for me. The morning would come, and I trusted that my grief would not be the end of me. “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me” (Psalm 3:5). “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

I was able to cry out to God, using the Psalms, about the very real emotions I was feeling. I prayed for God to show up, to hear me, and to comfort me with his promises from Scripture.

Cared for by the Body

The Lord also fathered me through the care of the body, the local church. Four months before my dad died, we had moved to another state for my husband’s first pastorate. Even though my dad died right after we moved, the people from our new church cared for me well. Some of the church members even drove almost six hours to my dad’s funeral. My former co-workers and our church family back in Birmingham sent cards filled with encouragement and care. I received texts and calls from friends from all stages of my life. My mom came to stay with us for a while after my dad’s death and the church made her feel welcome and included.

As those two years following my dad’s death went by, I still cried many tears. Even now, I am brought to tears just considering what my dad has missed as my kids have gotten older and new children have been added to our family that will never know my dad. But I have real hope as an anchor for my soul. The untimely death of my dad was one of the most difficult experiences I have gone through and one of the darkest times of my life. But God showed up. He fathered me well through his Word and his people. His promises became more real to me as I found I could trust him through my weeping. He provided for me time and time again as only a Father who is sovereign could.

I still miss my dad, even now fourteen years later. However, I am not left alone or orphaned for God has been a caring and faithful Father to me. So, whatever our stories with our earthly father are, whatever griefs we may feel, we always have a good and perfect Father to celebrate this Father’s Day.

Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash