Christian A.C.T.S.: Comforting hugs 21

"Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice:have mercy also unto me, and answer me...When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." Ps. 27:7,10

This is the month that we celebrate Father's Day. Like other holidays it can be a sad day for some. One group of people that it is sad for, are those whose Father was never there for them. That is whom I wish to talk to today.

There probably no greater pain than having a parent abandoned you. I noticed that the pain of it doesn't go away when you become an adult. Why? I believe that it is woven into our DNA to have the need of the approval of the ones who made us. Unfortunately, some people for one reason or other are not able to shoulder that responsibility, so they don't. No matter the reason, it hurts just the same. Children of ask themselves what was wrong with them that made a parent not want to love and care for them. Please realize that often it is not you, but something within them that made you live without them in your life.

God knows and understands this need in you. He loves you, and wants to be that Father to you. As the verse says, he wants to "take you up". That means that he wants to pick you up, and hold you as a Father does a child. But he will not force himself on you. You have to go to him and ask him to be your father.You can go to him and ask him to do that now, then you can spend time with him on Father's Day. I know that it is possible, because I have done it. One Father's day when I lived in a different state than my Father and had no way to get to him. After talking to my Father on the phone, I went to a church that I cleaned, slipped in and spent the day with God the Father. You can do so too. But you don't have to be in a church to do it, for God the Father is everywhere.

I pray that this information will help you have a great Father's Day with God the Father this year.

Comforting hugs,

Chaplain Toni