you know this. you know about my relationship with my dad growing up. how he was a wonderful pastor and sometimes an absentee father, how he read us bible stories and kissed us on the cheeks and home-schooled us in french and music yet didn’t really know how to talk to us, or play with us, or laugh.
but that was him, and this is now, and he’s had a wife go through brain cancer and children grow into adults who serve the Lord and he’s had a church fall in love with him and he’s had grandchildren.
and i’ve gone through another eating disorder, and had a husband fall in love with me, and i’ve given birth and i know now how exhausting and draining parenting can be and why dad would sometimes spend hours in his office with the door locked.
and i don’t blame him anymore.
instead, we sing together.
this vacation, we sung to aiden together, as he lay in bed, a song my dad used to always sing to me. a song which told me how much he loved me, when he didn’t know how.
and i don’t know but that it wasn’t the brightest moment in my whole life, this sitting in the dark, letting my father lead me through the verses of a melody which ministered to me when i was young and insecure and broken.
we all need these moments. in which we join in harmony. i pray for these, for you, today, friend.
for redemption. for wholeness. for love.