Father to the Fatherless

My love,

It was a strange feeling to stand in front of hundreds of Father's Day cards knowing I would not be purchasing one for you.  My eyes scanned over the various sections of cards: dad, grandfather, son, son-in-law, husband.  At knee level were brightly colored cards, some decorated with childlike drawings, others with the word "Daddy" along the border.  I ran my fingers across the top of those cards.  I imagined the kids that would fill this area as they excitedly choose a card for their daddy.  If they are anything like ours were, they would pick the biggest, brightest card without even glancing at the words.

As our kids matured, they no longer asked for my help when choosing your Father's Day card.  Each card was still bright, still youthful, but the words written held meaning to each of them.  

I felt a smile sneak onto my face as I recalled card shopping with our children.  What was once a noisy, giggle-filled experience was now silent as I stood alone in front of this sea of cards.  I carefully selected a card for my Dad, as well as a card for your Grandpa, and I left the store with my small purchase.

I learned something for the first time about this special day.  Father's Day was founded in 1910 by a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd.  She wasn't looking to create a holiday that would generate the small fortune that we now spend in greeting cards, there was a significant purpose to her desire to establish this day of honor.

When Sonora was 16 years old, her mother passed away during childbirth.  Her father became a widower, left to care for 6 children (including Sonora).

A widower.

The foundation of this day was laid upon the heart of a young woman because of her widowed father.  She appreciated her father and his sacrifices to raise 6 children on his own, and she felt strongly that fathers should be recognized as well, which is the reason she petitioned for what we now know as Father's Day.

A day that is set aside to honor the fathers in our lives began with the broken heart of a man and his children.  

My sweet husband, like Sonora, we recognize and deeply appreciate all that you did, and continue to do even in your heavenly presence, for our family.  

I've heard from some that now I must assume the roles of both mother and father.  

But the truth is...I won't.

I will never be able to fill the role of your place in the lives of our children.

And I wouldn't dare try.  

My guardianship has heightened and my awareness of their emotional needs has taken on new life, but I will never be you.

I will never assume your role.  Because the truth is, that's not what they need.

They need me to be their mother.  The mother they've known and trusted all along.

The mother who will guide them as best as I can.

I promise that I will give them the best of me (even if my best occasionally looks like a monkey caught in a hamster wheel).  

I promise to live in a way that brings honor to your name.

I promise to be our son's biggest cheerleader and our daughter's biggest fan.

I promise to make sure your name is forever spoken with respect, love, and admiration.

My love, I promise never to feel as though I have to make up for your absence.

I promise never to make myself believe that my worth as a mother is not valuable without a father.

Because the truth is, our children will never be without a Father.  

Each day that I am given, I will entrust the lives of our children into the hands of the Father you now endlessly praise.  

Your own legacy lives beautifully within each of them, while the love of our living God will continuously encompass them.

"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling." - Psalm 68:5

It's a promise from God that the three of us will never be alone.

It's a reminder that I am expected to be only one thing to our children: their mother.

It's an assertion that I do not have to fill the role of a physical father.

It's a pledge from God that the three of us are under the protection of His love and the promise of His grace.  Therefore, I can focus on being who I was designed to be for our children.

My love, on this first Father's Day without you, my heart is heavy with your absence, though my soul is light with God's promise.

I am grateful beyond words that you are the father of our children.  Each day I see your characteristics sprinkled in the mix of their personalities and mannerisms, and my heart instantly swells with bittersweet joy.  

Your sacrificial heart, while beating and while still, has forever impacted mine.  I will never stop living for you and dreaming with you.  You are ever-present in our home and your legacy will continue to be what leads our family.

Happy Father's Day, my love.  Our time with you was short, but your love for us is eternal, and that is the best gift a father could ever give.

My heart,

Your wife

PS:  Give the big guy a hug for me.  :)

_________

The idea of Father's Day came to Sonora Smart Dodd while she was attending a church service, and this day was given life as a result of a widower's heartache and hardship.  God moves powerfully in ways that will surprise even the strongest of believers.  How incredible that he turned tragedy into encouragement for fathers across the nation for decades upon decades!

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there!

And to all the single or widowed mamas - isn't is remarkable to know our children have a Father protecting and leading them alongside each of us?!  My heart is with you and your children today!

xoxo

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Love, God

Dear Valentine,

I can see when your heart is aching.  I know when you are longing for something.  There are days when you are filled with joy, and there are days when you are feeling despair.  I dance with you on the days when your heart is light.  I cradle you on the days when you lose hope.

I am here for you, always.

Nothing can ever separate us.  I will never leave you.  I know you have been hurt in the past.  I know you have been betrayed.  I know it is sometimes difficult for you to trust that I am here.  

But I promise, here is where I will always be.  For you.  Forever.

I love you more than I could ever hope to tell you.  When I look at you, I see the flawlessness of your beauty and the beauty of your character.  You are exactly as I imagined you to be.  I smile as I watch you go about your day.  I am so proud to call you mine.  

I created you because I wanted you.  For so long I hoped that you would want Me, too.  Within your soul you carry my hopes and my dreams for you.  I want you to have the best of everything because I love you more than anything.  

You are everything I've ever wanted. 

You are beautiful.

You are flawless in my eyes.

I talk about you to the angels.

I rejoice when I hear you call on Me.

In YOU I find hope.  In YOU I see love.

In YOU I see ME.

You will forever be My favorite Valentine.  

I love you.

Love,

God

xoxo

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Are You His Refuge?

As a child, when you heard thunder, what did you do?  Did you run to someone?  Did you hide?  Did you close all the blinds?  Did you turn up the television?  Where was your safe place during the storm?

Imagine a time in your life when you were the most scared.

Imagine the comfort you received.

The reassurance you were given.

Imagine the way it felt to feel your worries escape your thoughts.

The weight you felt being lifted from your heart.

Now, imagine that scary time again.

And this time, imagine being without a safe place to go.  

____________

Many years ago my husband was diagnosed with anxiety.  He opted not to treat his diagnosis with medication, and he didn't seek further therapy.  We just went on with life knowing that this "thing" was there.  I didn't take the time to learn anything about it, I just assumed he would figure it out and that would be the end of it.  He was going to be a fireman, and after all, they're the toughest guys out there, right?

During the fire academy there are many intense drills and scenarios that these guys have to face.  I will never forget the day my husband called me on his way home, in tears, because he was so scared. They were preparing to do a confined space drill, which was a drill that scared him the most.  And he couldn't do it.  I didn't know how to help him.  I didn't know what to say.  I can't remember exactly what was said, but I can promise you this: it wasn't reassuring.  I was at home raising a toddler and an infant while working full time and he was living in another city while going through this academy.  I felt that I didn't have time for his fears, I had enough going on at home.   

My husband called me during his storm.  And I proved to him that I was not a safe place.

A few years ago I received a call from my husband's Captain; they were taking him to the local emergency room because he was having heart palpitations.  Once it was determined that my husband was indeed in good health, he was discharged from the hospital and sent home.  My husband called me on his drive home; he was silent, almost afraid to talk.  I asked him the typical questions, "what happened?" And when he couldn't answer me, I grew frustrated.  "What do you mean you don't know?  Something had to happen. Something had to have made you feel this way.  Do you have any [confined space] drills coming up? Are you freaked out?"

Again, he called me during his storm.  And I proved to him that I was not a safe place.

When he walked in the door that day, I could see it in his face.  I could see his defeat.  I could see his fear.  I could see his worry.  

From that day, I vowed to be his safe place.

But I didn't know how to get there.  I knew in my heart that I wanted to become his place of security, but I knew that he couldn't trust that I would be safe.

It took a long time and a lot of effort from me before my husband realized that I was, indeed, safe.

I remember the first time I saw him trust me.

He had come home from working at his mom's house all day long; when he got home, he saw that our lawns needed to be mowed, a sprinkler in the front of the house was shooting up like a fountain, and his dinner was on a plate in the microwave because he didn't make it back in time to eat with us.

He was pacing around the backyard and I stood in the kitchen watching him through the window.  He finally stopped, so I walked out to him and just put my hand on his back.  He started to pull away from me, but instead he stayed there and just turned his head in the opposite direction of me.  I tried to look at him, and with just the right light from the moon, I could see that he had been crying.  

He was overwhelmed.  He was lost.  He didn't know what to do next.

I grabbed his hand and just stood there.

I didn't say a word.

I just held his hand in mine.

And then....he opened up.  His words came pouring out. I remember wrapping my arms around him, burying myself into his chest, and the only words I said were, "I love you so much."

That opened up the door for my husband.  He knew from that moment on that I was safe.

______________________

For those that have been following my blog for a while, or who have known us personally, you know that our marriage most definitely had its highest of highs and its lowest of lows.  I caused my husband a lot of pain with my deceit about finances, and he caused a lot of pain with the need to numb his emotions with alcohol.  The both of us lost trust in each other and neither of us would call each other "safe."  And for a long time, neither of us cared to be each other's safe place.

For years I prayed that God would change my husband.  Don't we all do that?  "God, please just change this about him..."  I didn't dare pray for me to change because I didn't want that challenge.  But God is amazing like that - I didn't have to pray for me to change because He was already working on it.  And apparently I'm a slower learner.  

In my blog post last year (I Moved a Storm) I shared about my daughter's anxiety attacks that we had been facing for months.  As a mother, I did everything to learn more about how to help my daughter.  I begged for advice, I purchased books, I paid for therapy, I prayed and prayed and prayed.  I would do anything to be the safe place for my daughter.  

And then one day I caught myself in the midst of my frantic research:  why didn't I ever do that for my husband?  I started paying attention to his habits: each morning that he was home and having to go to work, he woke in the middle of the night with a stomachache.  I always knew this about him, but never questioned it; I didn't realize he was feeling anxious.  He was a restless sleeper, always wanting to cuddle up to me in the middle of the night, and I'm not a snuggler...especially when I sleep.  

One restless night he, again, woke me up by laying his weight on a majority of my body.  Normally, I would turn away from him and force him to hug my back.  This time, I turned my body towards him, wrapped my arms around him, and just held him.  I felt his body relax and soon afterwards, his breathing became heavy as he fell back to sleep.

"Oh my gosh, all those years and this was all he needed?"  I felt so guilty.  

I finally got it right.

And for all the days of my life, I will never forget what he said to me 4 months before he died...

We were having dinner at his mom's house, I was watching him dance to country music with our daughter when he broke away from his dance and walked over to me.  From behind, he wrapped his strong arms around my waist, nuzzling his face into that spot between my neck and my shoulder, and he said, "I love you more now than I ever have before."  

I will never forget that.  

I did it.  I earned his trust.  I had successfully become his safe place.

We used to joke that after years of being married, we "finally got it right."

___________________________

So, how do you do it?  How do you become the "safe place" when, if we're being honest, you don't want to?

You love him.  And you love the beast in him.

I had somehow stumbled upon this image years ago when I was most definitely not acting as my husband's safe place.  I saved this image to my phone and I stared at it...often.  This spoke so loudly to me despite the fact that there were no words.

This was the effect I wanted to have on my husband. I wanted to melt away the monster.

Be Quiet

Easier said than done, right?  Each man is different.  Each man has different needs.  But each man wants to be heard.  He had a bad day at work?  He's stressed about paying the bills?  He can't stand his coworkers?  He hates the commute?  His brother's best friend's uncle's neighbor upset him?  The dog sheds too much?  

Just listen.  

"To answer before listening - that is folly and shame." (Proverbs 18:13 - NIV)

OR in other words:

"Answering before listening is both stupid and rude." (Proverbs 18:13 - The Message Translation)

I'm a big talker.  And I love to offer solutions before even hearing the problem.  Ugh.  It took a lot of lessons for me to learn what God so clearly lays out.  

Go back to the illustration above.  She's not talking.  She's not offering solutions.  She's silently loving him.  Let him talk.  Let him speak.  Let him know that you are not always going to rebuttal his words, and you are not always going to give a solution.  Sometimes, they just want to be heard, and they want a safe place to lay those words.

LOVE Him

We all have bad days.  We all have those days when we just want to tear out the eyes of the stuffed animal on the bed because it looks too smug. (Oh, is that just me?)

And we all want to be loved during those bad days.  

I often think about the unconditional love that I get from God on a daily (hourly, really) basis.  He doesn't stop showing love to me because I want to rip apart that stuffed bear.  In fact, He loves me even more.  When I think about the number of times God has shown love and grace to me, I feel bad for the guy.

You can't give love without offering grace.  

And you can't offer grace without giving love.

And God has given so much of both to me.

"You don't understand, my husband can be so difficult to love."

Oh, but I do understand.  

Everyone has a husband who can be difficult to love.

And every husband has a wife who can be difficult to love.

(And let's be honest, if you have teenagers, even they can be difficult to love)

Think about when you were a child and you got hurt.  What did you want?  You were crying out in pain (equivalent to a bad attitude at the end of the day) and you needed to be comforted.  What if your parent or grandparent saw you in pain, looked at you and walked away because they were angry with you for being disobedient the day before?

Is that what you do to your husband?  Do you deny love and reassurance because he said something hurtful the day before?

Showing love to your spouse during their most difficult days begins to open the door of trust.  The best way to show him love?  Kindness.  Don't mistake kindness with subservience.  It takes great strength to be kind to someone who may not reciprocate.  We all know the saying, "kill them with kindness."  Just be kind.  Watch what happens.  Kindness can melt the hardest of hearts.

Be Patient...and PRAY

It pains me to know that for so many years I missed the cues of my husband's needs.  He was not a perfect husband and I was certainly far from a perfect wife.  But once we figured it out, it was better than anything we imagined.  

What fills your prayers?  The hope that your husband will be the one to change?  Think again.  That's not where God is going to put His focus.  He needs to make sure your heart is ready for your husband's insecurities.  God himself wants to make sure that you can be trusted with your husband's heart.  So guess who He is going to be focusing on...you.  Me.  

I used to pray for God to change the heart of my husband.  And then one of my closest friends told me to switch up my prayers.  "Pray for him to feel God's love for him.  Pray that he will know how much God loves him."  So, I started praying for that...and guess who was the one God planned to use in that prayer request?  Yep, me.

We can't change our guys.  We can only focus on ourselves.  There will be days when you throw your hands up in the air and say, "what the heck, God? I'm loving my husband like you told me to, why is it still so rough??"  Because it doesn't happen overnight.  It requires patience and complete reliance on God.  My husband didn't change overnight.  My husband changed when I did...he softened when I did.  

There were many times when I tried to show my husband that I was safe.  And there were many times that he was leery.  There were several times that my efforts went unnoticed, and there were several moments when I wanted to quit.  

But that night in my backyard, I saw the walls come down, and suddenly I lost count of the months I spent trying because all that mattered in that moment was that I succeeded.

Don't give up on your guy.  Be patient.  Like anything, you have to earn his trust.  A man is not typically wired to expose his fears, his worries or his insecurities.  Over time he will see that you are safe.  Be patient.  God is planning to use YOU to answer your prayers.

_________________

Hindsight is always the best sight, and in so many ways I wish I could go back to my newlywed self and teach myself how to be the safe place for my husband.  Almost 16 years of marriage that included babies, separation, many arguments, hopelessness, and frustration.  But when we "finally got it right," it was worth all those lessons we learned in years prior.

Love the monster out of your man, let him melt into your heart.  Be that place of refuge for him.  The place where he can safely lay his words, where he can comfortably expose his fears, and where he will run during the storm.

There was a night when my husband said to me, "I feel the safest when I am with you..."

Words that will forever stay with me.  Words I never thought I'd hear.  Words that were worth the days and nights of perseverance and prayer.

The work starts with you.

Be quiet.

Listen.

Love.

Be patient.

Pray.

After all, every beauty loves the beast who desperately just wants to be a man.

xoxo

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From the bottom of my heart

[The day of my husband's funeral]

It's the second day into the new year, and tonight I fed my children a meal that was placed in my freezer  at some point within the last 3 months.  I have not been to the market in almost 15 weeks.  Paper goods magically appeared and have seemed to reproduce in my house.  The most I have done for my children has been to buy the occasional gallon of milk, replace my son's deodorant, and make sure they have clean underwear (and even that's been iffy).  

Meals have been brought to my mother-in-law, food has been dropped off to my parents, gifts have been left on my porch and delivered to my husband's station.  Countless emails and messages have been received, along with phone calls, voicemails, and text messages.

Tonight as I placed a prepared meal into my oven, I was completely overwhelmed with the realization of just how much my family has been loved, prayed for, and served.  It's been over 3 months and I still have meals to feed my children.  I have bundles of gift cards to markets and restaurants.  YOU are feeding my family.  

Not only has my family been served physically with meals, gifts, and more recently the helpful put-up and tear down of Christmas, but the absolutely mind blowing generosity of so many from all over the country has honestly moved me to tears.

For the last 3 months, my children and I have literally been living off of the generous hearts of so many.  I bet you didn't know that.  I am willing to bet that you did not realize that each donation that has been made has truly been helping my family.  From the mortgage, to counseling, to those gallons of milk, I truly don't know where we would've been without your generosity.

The community of which my husband served, the community in which we live, and the town of which he was serving at the time of his death, each held fundraiser after fundraiser to help our little family as a way to honor my husband.  Repeatedly I would say, "I can't believe it.  I can't believe how nice people are being to us."

Family, friends, and strangers have sent cards, homemade gifts, plaques, statues, patches, pictures, and stories.  I have kept every single thing that has been sent to me, whether directly to my home or to the department's headquarters, I have held onto and cherished all of it.  I have bundles of drawings from children, and invitations to Hero Days at schools that aren't even in my hometown.  I have notes from Girl Scout troops, prayer cards from churches, and letters from dignitaries (even the President).  

You will never know what you have done for my heart.  You have supported me with your words, lifted me up with your kindness, and carried me with your love.

There were many, many nights I spent sitting at my kitchen table poring through hundreds of letters that seemed to make their way to my hands every time my husband's Captain would come to my home.  If I had the address of somebody who sent a card or a note to me, I was sending a thank you card.

I loved writing those cards because with each name I wrote, I smiled and thanked God for the love He was showing to me.  Because here's the truth:  your thoughtfulness, your generosity, your kindness, and your sacrifice were used to deliver God's message to me.  

Five days after losing my husband, I begged God to stay close to me and to speak to me in a way in which I knew He was near.

And then came all of you.

You are an answered prayer.

Thank you for serving my family.  Thank you for loving us, without even knowing us.  Thank you for taking care of us while we try to find our "new normal."  Thank you for being the example of what we should all strive to be.

YOU are the messengers of hope, love, encouragement, strength, and perseverance.  

YOU  turned God's love into something tangible, something real, and something that I can't ignore.

YOU are the light in my moments of darkness.

YOU will forever be imprinted on my heart.

"Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God.  Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart." Philippians 1:3-4

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

From the bottom of my grateful heart.

xoxo

[One of the many nights filled with gratitude for you]

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