I remember my father, but it isn't with the usual gush of affection reserved for the man who is supposedly THE most important person in every family. Last week during our cell meeting, we talked about how fathers had impacted our lives. I had to be honest, the one good thing I remember of my father was getting the best pig's brain porridge on those late nites when he won (rarely) at his mahjong games. But of coz I know my father loved me, so did my mum...back in my days, such things are 'known', no need to talk about it. As much as they knew how to, in all their human limitations, they loved me. For that alone, I should and am grateful. As for the 'bad stuff' in my childhood, I have let them go long ago when I was 'adopted' by the best father anyone can ever have - Abba Father in heaven. God has dealt with me mercifully on those issues, bringing me to a place of acceptance, forgiveness and release. So I am not ashamed of them, nor do I need to hide them.
Anyway, I am sure I am not the only one who is 'out of jive' with those 'normal' folks who have fantastic fathers, who labored, protected, disciplined, in short loved, their kids into productive matured adults, leaving them a legacy to be proud of. Hey, great for them. No, I am not a 'sour-grape' out to spoil people's legitimate expressions of appreciation for a very important person in every human's life. After all, without fathers and mothers, we won't even be around in the first place.
It's just that I get a bit pensive every Father's Day hearing spill-over enthusiasm about Dads. For that matter it happens on Mother's Day too. Like someone said, she dreads going to church come Father's/Mother's Days, because she feels so 'out of sync' with all the glowing 'feel-good' stuff being preached then. Coming from a less than perfect family myself, I understand where she's at. I also get a bid maudlin thinking about my kids without a father for the past 14 years. I dunno if they miss their father. Maybe not, since the other day one of them mentioned nonchalantly 'Why are we dining out on Father's Day again? It's not like we have a father also'.
That hurt quite a bit, tho I am sure it wasn't said with the intention to hurt; it was just stated as a fact. But it twisted my heart because I know I could never be a father to my kids. I dunno how to be. I am just a mother. And sometimes a rather poor one I feel. The Bible tells fathers not to provoke their children. I am not a father, but I know I am guilty of that. I know also I should be more patient, more gracious, kinder. Someone commented I am 'gruff' with my kids. Hmmm. Sometimes I just throw up my hands and tell God, I dunno how to do this.
I look back over the years ever since they were without a father, and I remember the 1 desire of my heart for them. It was never about wishing they would grow up smart, clever, rich, beautiful, go to the best (overseas) uni's, get established with successful careers, much money, happy families...all the prosperity and good fortune stuff. Certainly nothing wrong praying and hoping for such blessings for our own flesh-and-blood. And I do rejoice seeing how they have grown up, coz that means somehow we have all survived through the ups-n-downs of life together. But what I really wanted for them, then and now, has never changed, which is that they may know God, the 1 and only true living God in Christ Jesus, to love Him as He so loves them. With that, I know they will already have the highest, the best blessing. Not because I am so 'holy- moley' but because of the 1 verse that had stood out in my darkest hour of losing their father so many years ago, which was this "a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in His holy dwelling" (Psalm 68:5). No preacher taught me that, no human being pointed me to that word in the Bible. God Himself spoke it into my spirit, that's how personal and real my God is. And that's the promise I cling onto all the time.
Many Father's days have since come and gone. The kids are no longer kids, and I am left to wonder what happened? Parents often joke (despairingly) that when our children are babies, we wish they would grow up; when they grow up, we wish they could have remained babies. Babies just need to be fed milk and cuddled to sleep. You can't do that to a human being beyond the age of 5 years, at most. And as that being grows heavier, bigger, taller and older, so do your headaches. Oh, and don't forget the heart-aches - that's the 'killer'. But like I say, I am nothing special, every parent goes through them.
When I read the story of Mary kneeling at the cross, watching the Son she gave birth to hang bleeding and dying, I wonder how many tears did she shed? How many times did she cry out 'Why, God?' and received no answer. Did she remember the time a 30 year old Jesus walked out of the family house, never to return, embarking on a course that would take Him to death on a cross ? Did she feel abandoned as a mother? How about when He got left behind, so engrossed in preaching His first sermon at age 12, that He missed their caravan going back to their village - did she panic not finding Him?
I watch my kids grow. I have cried out 'Why, God....did this or that happen/not happen to them?' I have received no satisfactory answers sometimes. No doubt I will see them walking out my door soon enough, never to return since they will have other doors to step through. I dunno where these will lead them. I see them getting lost but I can't stop them, because they want to do their own thing, when all I want is for them to do God's thing, not even my thing. My mind flits back to Eden, when Adam and Eve, the first 'children' disobeyed Father God. We are apt to think God got angry at them for eating the forbidden fruit and therefore punished them. But I wonder mayhap God was more sad than angry, that the children He created should use the freedom He so generously gave them to choose to disobey Him for the sake of their own pleasure. There's a saying that the people who hurt you most are not your enemies, they are the ones you love most; the reason obviously is precisely because of love. How many human parents have watched silently from the sidelines, with aching hearts, as their children turn off in so-called independence into ways that we know are not the best for them. Yet as the saying goes, if they aren't allowed to fall themselves, they will never know what pain and folly is and how to get up again, much as we want to put out our hands to stop them from falling.
So we hurt, for them and with them. I dunno what fathers do but as a mother, I cry and I pray. A wise old father/grandfather I know said women cry their sorrows out, men bury them inside and suffer silently. It reminds me of this little piece I read somewhere about why God made women to cry so easily. God said, "When I made the woman she had to be special. I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world; yet, gentle enough to give comfort. I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children. I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining. I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly. I gave her strength to carry her man through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart. I gave her wisdom to know that a good man never hurts his woman, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly. And finally, I gave her tears to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed. You see: The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides."
I am not sure about the beauty bit, but I do know one thing, just when I think I have no more tears to cry or can't be bothered anymore, a fresh flood comes. I find the older I get, the easier the tears flow, whether it's over myself, my kids, or my country. I guess it's because I realize ultimately there really isn't much I can do to change people or situations, having done all that I humanly can do. Hmmm, I think God must have created bottomless wells of tears inside me, knowing I will need to shed them. King David who wasn't ashamed to admit his weakness and cry had this to say about God , "You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?" (Psalm 56:8) I dunno how many bottles bearing my name are lined up in God's closet now. But it's such a comforting thought for me, knowing that when there's nothing left but tears and prayers, God actually gathers them all into His own hands. And He knows what to do with them.
"Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy" - Psalm 126:5
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