EP 113: A Letter to My Father (& Making Peace with Yours)

EP 113 – A Letter to My Father (& How to Make Peace with Yours) – LOVING LIFE AT HOME – Christian Marriage, Biblical Parenting, Creative Homemaking, Purposeful Living

Father’s Day is right around the corner. So this seems like a good time to revisit the topic of fathers and fatherhood – including how to make peace with the dad you had, whether he was warm and loving and generally around. Or cold and distant and seldom available. Or somewhere in between.

The letter I share in this episode is one I wrote more than two decades ago and first published on this blog back in 2013, which you can read in full below today’s show notes.

A Letter to My Father (& How to Make Peace with Yours)

Complete transcript from Episode 113

Hello, friend.

Welcome to Episode 113 of Loving Life at Home.

Today is Wednesday, June 17, and that means this coming Sunday is Father’s Day. So this seems like a good time to revisit the topic of fathers and fatherhood – including how to make peace with the dad you had, whether he was warm and loving and generally around. Or cold and distant and seldom available. Or somewhere in between.

My own father fell into the former category. It’s something I took completely for granted when I was growing up. But the older I get, the more I appreciate how rare a jewel my mother married.

My dad was not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination. But he was there. He was steady like a rock. And he loved his family – there was never any doubt in anybody’s mind about that fact, which is saying a lot.

This September will mark 20 years since my father’s passing. It’s hard to fathom that he’s been gone so long. Hardly a week goes by that I’m not reminded of him. Which makes sense, because I look just like him, and I think a lot like him, too. And I passed both those traits to some of my kids. Particularly my firstborn – that makes three generations of firstborns who favor one another in looks and mindset – and that serves as yet another reminder of Dad’s impact and influence.

Dad was always pretty stubborn, but he could also be moved to tears by a sappy commercial. I take after him in both those respects, as well. Sometimes when we sing one of my father’s favorite hymns at church, I’ll get so choked up I can hardly get through all the verses without my voice cracking.

Anyway, 20 years is a long time to be without a father, but I remember dreaming that my Daddy died several years before he actually did. The dream came long before his cancer diagnosis, long before his health began to deteriorate, back when he was still in the prime of life, while he was still here.

But the dream shook me up. In my dream, my father died suddenly. I woke up crying, with a lump in my throat, missing him terribly, stricken by grief, and filled with remorse over all the unspoken things I should have said, would have said, if only I had another chance.

How relieved I was to realize it was only a dream and there was still time to say what was in my heart.

So I crawled out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, bleary-eyed but grateful that my dad was still in the land of the living, and I scrambled around for a pen and some stationery to write a few words of gratitude to my father while I still had opportunity to do so.

This is the letter I sent him the following day:

By the way—I shared that story in a previous podcast and will link it in the shownotes. The letter continues…

 I remember how you waved from the sidelines as I marched in a school parade .

[That was our bicentennial parade—fifty years ago.]

I remember how you taught me about negotiation (even with retail stores) when you made me bargain with the manager for a better price on all those lap desks I used to paint .

I used to buy these little boards that were attached to a bing-bag pillow for $3 a piece at the grocery store, paint people’s names on them, and sell them for $10 each – but my mother brought home so many orders from people who wanted them at work that Dad was convinced I could get a quantity discount. So he marched me to the back of the grocery store, pointed to the office at the top of a long staircase, and told me to go discuss it with the manager and see what he’d say. So I did. I was only 10 or 11 and felt really nervous, but the manager agreed to sell me the lap desks for $1 apiece if I bought 20 at a time — or however many of them came in a case. Okay. Back to the letter….

Dad loved math just like I do, and he started teaching me early. He’d write pages and pages of arithmetic problems and time me to see how fast I could answer them all. He kept me a step or two ahead of all my classmates all through school, and I eventually majored in math in college, then finished two years of graduate work in math as well before having my first baby.

Interestingly, one of the logic problems my father gave me on one of those long car trips when I was in fifth or sixth grade, I didn’t encounter again until I was working on my masters. I wasn’t able to solve it in grade school, but dad explained it to me so well that I remembered and could solve it immediately in grad school.

I’m sorry… I’m never going to make it through this letter if I keep going into so much detail! My letter continues…

Even as an adult, I have a hard time arguing against that ironclad logic. Years after the fact, my sister sent me a study that showed eating ice cream for breakfast boosts kids’ ability to concentrate… or something like that. Obviously, our dad was just ahead of his time. I’ll try to look up the study and link it in the show notes.

I don’t normally serve my own children traditional ice cream for breakfast, but we do start most days with a big smoothie with from frozen bananas and peanut butter. The kids make theirs with cows milk and I make mine with soy. So we still  get the focus, but without the added sugar.

The letter goes on…

My dad was 100% right. I was wearing way too much make up back then. It would take me half an hour every morning to apply it! I can hardly believe I spent so much time in front of the mirror in high school, but that looming threat of being embarrassingly marched to the bathroom for makeup removal really got my attention, and the pendulum swung to the opposite extreme, where I went from wearing way too much makeup to using none at all.

I’m sure there was a happy medium in there that would’ve satisfied everyone involved, but it worked out, because I ended up marrying a man who – like my dad – preferred a more natural look, and he might not ever have even asked me out if he’d seen me all painted up like I was back in high school.

But, back to Dad’s letter. I continued…

As I read back over this letter, I’m struck by the fact that my sweetest memories are often the simplest ones. My father didn’t need to buy expensive gifts or take me on grand vacations to make my childhood wonderful. It was the little things, the everyday kindnesses, that spoke loudest to my heart and assured me of his love.

My daddy wasn’t perfect. No daddy is. He seemed pretty par at the time, although the intervening years have convinced me he was extraordinary in ways my child-brain could never fully appreciate.

Making Peace with Your Own Father

Not everybody is fortunate enough to have a father like mine. If you are one of the favored few, thank God. And if you’re father’s still alive, then by all means thank him, too.

What if relations with your father are strained?

If your father wasn’t exemplary – or even present at all – I’m so sorry. I can only imagine what a hole that fact leaves in one’s heart. My advice to you would be three-fold:

1 – First, look to God to fill that void

I know there is nothing on earth that can fill the gaping hole left by an apathetic, absentee, or abusive dad.

But I also know that God has promised to be a father to the fatherless (as we read in Psalm 68:5) and that His steadfast love for His children endures forever. (see Psalm 118:29)

Consider these verses:

• 2 Corinthians 6:18 – “I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
• John 1:12 – “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name”
• Galatians 3:26 – You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
• 1 John 3:1-2 – Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!

Your earthly father may have failed you. But your Heavenly Father will never leave or forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6) So look to Him to make up for any lack you’ve felt from the father you did or didn’t grow up with.

2 – Second, look at your earthly father with fresh eyes

In addition to cultivating a deeper relationship with your heavenly father, do what you can to mend your relationship with your earthly father. Take Paul’s advice from Romans 12:18, and “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

Whether your father is involved or estranged, living or dead, you may want to write him a letter of your own. Even if you don’t or can’t send the letter, sometimes when there are deep hurts or regrets or strong emotions of any kind, it helps to get them down on paper. It’s cathartic.

It allows you to pray about those matters. To examine them from a different perspective. To bring them before the LORD and ask for compassion to understand, grace to forgive, and freedom to move forward. (see Ephesians 4:32)

For your own well-being, I’d recommend you do your best to find something good about your relationship with your dad, no matter how small, and focus on that… even if it’s nothing more than “we used to wrestle, and that was fun.”

This is just one more application of Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

3 – Third, look for ways to do better, by the grace of God

Even if you weren’t blessed with my kind of father, you can bless your own children with my father’s brand of parenting.

You can do it by pouring yourself into them. Give them generous helpings of your time, your attention, your patience, and your love.

Don’t make it your goal to “never do what my dad did” – that keeps your focus on his negative example and sets you up for failure. Instead, make it your goal to honor and imitate God – that’s a much better motivation and keeps your focus on a positive example.

Sure, you’ll make mistakes. None of us are perfect. 

But remember that it’s often the little things —

— those are the things that make all the difference.

We should all ask ourselves this question: What am I doing today that my child will remember fondly tomorrow?

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