Unbreakable Promise

I never had a father who loved me. I’ll be 69 in two months, and you’d think by now the sadness would have evaporated long ago. But it still lingers. The memories of my loss still drift to the surface of my thoughts from time to time. 

Like this morning as I talked with the Lord. 

Albert left us when I was four. I sat on our black couch with silver threads throughout the fabric when Mom told me daddy wasn’t coming home any more. 

I later learned he’d told the judge at the custody hearing that he’d place Andrea and me in an orphanage if he got custody of us. 

Several years passed, and Mom married Tom. I was ten. Andrea was eight. He adopted us and gave us his last name. That was about all we got from him. I don’t remember him ever hugging me, encouraging me, joking with me, attending school events with me. What I do remember is his volatile temper and emotional cruelty to all three of us. 

Why am I telling this to you? Because during our conversation this morning, I thought God asked me to share it with you – for this reason: 

First, if you and your wife have divorced – PLEASE do not divorce your children. 

Sixty-nine years from today, the loss your children will experience day after day and year after year because of your absence – the loss will still linger. It will still hurt – sixty-nine years from today. 

Yes, it would be so much better for everyone if you and your wife reconcile, if you learn to love each other again as you loved one another when you stood together at the marriage altar. But if such reconciliation cannot or will not happen, please, DO NOT forsake your children. Boys and girls – and young men and women – NEED their daddy in their lives. 

Second, if you grew up – or are growing up – without a dad in your life, you can still know the love of a Father – a faithful, ‘always-in-your-life’ companion who will never reject you; He will never turn away from you; He will never give you His name and little else. 

I know Him as my heavenly Father. I first learned of His matchless, selfless, and unconditional love for me when I was 22. We’ve been with each other ever since. Sometimes, if I’m quiet enough and still enough, I can feel His embrace. And I hear Him whisper in my thoughts: “You are My beloved son. I love you very, very much.” And I call Him “Daddy” most of the time when we talk together.

No one abandoned by a parent needs to be an orphan. The Father in heaven delivered His Son Jesus to death so you and I might know, on the most personally intimate level, that we might know Him as our passionate, affectionate, and faithful “Daddy.” 

Were you – or are you – forsaken by your earthly father? Years ago, I memorized one of His many promises: “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.”* 

You are not alone.

I hope that unbreakable promise by God Himself will comfort and encourage you, too.

*Psalm 27:10, NLT