Finding My Father: How the Gospel Heals the Pain of Fatherlessness

Blair Linne: Praise the Lord. It’s a blessing to be here with you guys and share about finding my father, how the gospel heals the pain of fatherlessness. But let me just look at your faces first before we get started. It’s just good to be here with you. We’re willing to serve you during our time together.

I will be sharing some of my story personally and then afterwards, if anyone is interested in getting a book, I’m actually going to go to the bookstore right after. So I will be there to sign anything if you want or even to chat even further.

If you have a piece of paper, if you have a pencil or pen, I’m going to start us off with a question. It’s something I want you to think about and write down. I’m going to give you a minute.

I want you to consider what adjective you would use to describe how you feel when you think about your earthly father. What’s the adjective that you think best describes you and how you feel about your earthly father?

I want to encourage you to write down your words without judging yourself. Just know no one is going to grade your words. I just want you to try and be as honest as possible. I know in a room like this, there is probably going to be a diverse group of words that will be written down.

For some of you, you may experience joy. When you think about your earthly father, you think about joy. And you think about protection, and you think about provision, and you think about gratitude.

I know that there are going to be others here, when you think about your earthly father, you might think about feeling abandoned. You might feel shame or grief, confusion or pain. Maybe you feel exhaustion or distrust.

I know some might feel disgust or hatred or contempt. Maybe you feel numb. Maybe you feel indifferent or detached or calloused or paralyzed.

We all have our words. Words communicate our feelings. Often our words are just buried deep in our hearts, never to escape.

God can handle our feelings. God knows them already. And the truth is, what you’re feeling right now is probably what someone else in this room is feeling. You’re not alone. I’ll say that. Until we allow what we feel on the inside, whether good or bad or all in-between, until we allow it to be brought to light, we won’t know the extent to which fatherlessness has affected us.

I think that this is a topic, fatherlessness, is a topic that’s rarely spoken about. In my book, I call it the “elephant in the room.” We know it’s a problem. One in four children right now are being raised in a home without a father. I’m not even just talking about your biological father—without a step-father, without an adoptive father. One in four children are in a home like that now.

It’s one of the most significant social problems facing us, and yet there’s not a collective movement to shift this epidemic that we see, that I see. But God . . . So God has spoken about fatherlessness, and He demands the Church do something about it.

I want to talk today to the daughters in the room, the daughters who are here dealing with fatherlessness. And then, at the end, I also want to talk to the daughters who are walking side by side with their sisters who are dealing with fatherlessness. You want to know how to best support and come alongside those who may be dealing with pain.

I don’t have to tell you that life can be hard. I think sometimes the chapters of our lives as they unfold, and sometimes it catches us off guard. If I had a clue how my life would unfold, I don’t know if I would have laughed, like Sarah, or just wept because things are hard, things are difficult.

Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile these hard truths. We can struggle with the father that we desire to have from the father we actually have. I want to encourage you to deal with what’s before you today. We have to deal with what is actually true, even if it’s hard. We can take those hard truths, those true realities of what it means to live in a fallen world, and we can learn to cast them over to our God.

My story is about physical absence, the physical absence of a father.

My mother and my father actually were never married. When my mother found out she was pregnant with me, they weren’t even dating. She was going to abort me and ended up talking to a Baptist minister which convinced her otherwise.

She decided she was going to give me up for adoption. She was already a single mother. My sister was four at the time. And so, I just think the weight of what does it look like to be a mother of two children and unwed really weighed on her. She was going to give me up for adoption. She had a c-section, and she said after she had me, I just stared at her. And so, the Lord somehow worked in that, and she decided to keep me.

But life was hard. My father, at the time, would, I remember. . . Well, I don’t quite remember, but I was told when I was very young, there were times I would go over to his house. There were times he would bring big bags of candy to me and my sister and my cousin.

When I was three, my mom moved us across the country. She moved us to California—from Michigan to California. There really wasn’t much of a relationship there with my father. There always seemed to be just a barrier or a wall up.

I remember around nine or so him calling on the phone. We might talk once, maybe twice a year, for about five minutes. And during those conversations, I remember I often wanted to just say, “I know that this is not the way that this should be. I long for more,” even at nine. But I was too afraid to share that with him because I felt like if I opened up and shared that, maybe the little bit of time I had with him would go away, and so fear just kept my mouth muzzled.

It wasn’t until nine years later that I had the courage, at eighteen, to communicate with him and say, “You know, I am really struggling, and I’ve been affected by your absence, and I’ve been afraid.”

I was having a conversation with him, and I just thought, I just can’t have another conversation without communicating how much I’m suffering because this isn’t a relationship. Like, we don’t even know each other. I don’t know your interests. He didn’t know my interests. And so, I just kind of blurted it out. Like, “This is hard. I’m struggling. I’m afraid. But I’m just going to get it out.”

I thank the Lord for that conversation. I will say, he did try to make more of an effort after that conversation when I was eighteen, but it was still hard.I talk more about my story in my book, but my story is more about that physical absence.

I do know, though, that there are others of you here who, your father lived in the home with you. You may be dealing with the emotional absence of a father or the spiritual absence of your father. He’s there, but he’s not there. Right? The statistics don’t deal with that.

Maybe you dealt with something even worse. You had a father who was in the home, but he was emotionally or physically or spiritually or even sexually abusive.

I have a friend who, from the age of nine to thirteen, she was sexually abused by her own father. At thirteen, he impregnated her. She was forced to get an abortion, and her dad completely denied it.

One in five women have been sexually assaulted. I think sometimes we talk about sexual abuse today, and because we want to protect our children from the stranger, we want to be so careful about the stranger, which is right and good. But 93% of children who are victims of sexual abuse, they know their abuser. It’s someone they know, someone they’re familiar with.

I know that there may be a sister here in this room, and you’re carrying a hard truth that maybe no one knows about. My prayer has been that you will be set free today, that today will be the beginning of a new journey. I know that it’s a process. I have not personally experienced sexual abuse. I’ve experienced spiritual abuse. But I know with all abuse, there is a process.

But the truth is, we are not bound by the sinful choices of our fathers. And so, it’s not enough, even with those one in four children, or if you’ve experienced fatherlessness, it’s not enough to just say, “Fathers, get back to the home.” I think this issue with fatherlessness goes beyond that because, as I said, a father could be in the home and could actually cause more damage if he were in the home than if he were not in the home.

It has to be more than that because many of our fathers are lost. They don’t know what a father is because they don’t have a heavenly father. Our fathers need a Savior. Our fathers need to know that there is a heavenly father who has given them purpose and actually will hold them accountable for their sin.

Unregenerate fathers, I think they’re so used to following that first human father, Adam, when he sinned. They’ve lost the truth of who they are actually called to imitate. We don’t know what a father is anymore.

First Timothy 5:8 says that, “If anyone does not provide for their relatives, and especially for members of his household, he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

According to the Bible, a father, a human father is to be a shadow. A human father is to shadow. It’s a male parent. He is made in the image of God. 

• He is to be the head of his household. 
• He is to work and provide. 
• He’s responsible for training his children. 
• He’s to make sure not to provoke his children to wrath, but to raise his children up and to nurture them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
• He should be the first man his daughter loves in purity. 
• He’s called to care for his family in a spirit of gentleness, to display and model for his daughter what she should look for in a man. 
• He is to instill blessing and identity in his children and to model, not perfectly, but in faith model God the Father.

So this is what a father is to be. When an earthly father doesn’t model God the Father, it leaves room for the father of lies to slither in. And so Adam’s sin, we see in the Scripture, affected Cain’s sin. It just trickles down and trickles down, all the way down that genealogical line to us, to our fathers, and then to us.

Fathers are important. Fathers matter. I say in my book how I believe that fathers are under attack. We have believed the lie, Satan’s lie, that mothers matter, but fathers are dispensable. Like, it’s not really about the fathers; it’s about the mothers.

But I believe Satan knows if he can execute the man, that there will be several caskets following behind that man. If our fathers are lost, it affects so much about us. It affects our identity. It affects how we interact with others. And it affects how we interact and see God.

Another question I want you to write down and consider is: What lies have you believed as a result of your earthly father’s absence? What lies have you believed as a result of your earthly father’s absence?

I know I have believed many lies. Maybe we’ve believed the lie that we need to have a man’s attention in order to feel special because we haven’t had our dad’s attention. Or, I think the other side of it is believing the lie, “I don’t need a man. I’m good.” So we’re militant in our singleness.

Singleness is beautiful. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s beautiful when it’s done in faith. I think it’s pretty ugly when it’s done in fear.

Maybe we’ve believed the lie that our value is in our performance. So, if we’re really good, then maybe they’ll stay. Maybe they won’t abandon us if we’re good enough. That means that we view our worth in our looks or in our worth or in our education or in our wealth. “If I have it together, then they won’t leave me. I’ll be okay. I’ll make them stay.”

Maybe we have a distorted body image or chronic dissociation or chronic depression or self-abuse or boundary confusion as a result of the lies that we’ve believed.

It doesn’t take long to realize that behind all of these lies is a fear. There can be this unaddressed trauma fed to us by the father of lies because our father was absent.

I say in my book that we’re both victims and rebels. I’ll explain what that means: Victims because we’ve been victimized by other people’s sin—all of us have in one way or another. Rebels because we often choose to rebel against God with our own sin.

Victimization is never an excuse for rebellion, though. We’re not responsible for what happened to us as children. We are not responsible for the choices our parents made. Not at all do we hold any responsibility for the choices they’ve made. Our father’s absence is not our fault. It wasn’t because of something we did. We’re not the center of our parents’ choices.

So the women in the room who’ve had their fathers in their home, it wasn’t because they were better than you or they didn’t sin. It had nothing to do with them. Your father’s absence had nothing to do with you. Our parents made a choice that we can’t change.

But we are responsible, though, for what we do with our pain as we grow into young adults and adults. So as hurtful as the decision that your dad or your mom made, eventually we’re going to have to wake up one day, and we’re going to have to decide: “You know what? I’m not going to be a victim. I am going to live victoriously.”

I want to think a bit about this victorious life. I think about it in two categories. I think we have to address the vertical, and then we have to address the horizontal. Our heavenly Father, that’s the vertical, and then our earthly father, that’s the horizontal.

I want to start with our heavenly Father.

For many years I started my prayers off with, “Our Father who art in heaven.” I was taught that prayer, like many of you were taught that prayer. However, the idea of God actually being my Father, I didn’t reconcile that with how I thought God felt about me in the day to day. I knew humanity was born into sin, but I ran away from God.

There are at least two ways to run from God. You can run away from God through immorality, or you can run away from God through morality. I ran away from God through morality. That’s kind of what I gravitated towards—legalism, moralism, self-righteousness, thinking that, again, perfectionism could justify myself before God.

When I realized that I was serving the father of lies by clinging to those things, I then acknowledged, “I personally needed a Savior.” I needed someone outside of myself—a sacrificial lamb. I needed the Son of God to die for me and resurrect for me in order to make me God’s child.

As I agreed with God’s Word, I began to cry out to God, and He saved me. However, when I trusted in Christ as my righteousness, I kind of projected my earthly experience onto my spiritual experience. I knew God saved me, but I thought, “Oh, He’s merely tolerating me. I don’t know if He really loves me.”

I viewed God as just a judge who pardoned my sin, but not a father, not a father who’s tender, who loves me, who cares for me, who sings over me, who has graciously chosen me–chosen me.

I thought God did not want to be near me because my earthly father didn’t appear to want to be near me. That changed once I began to open up the Scripture. I began to see God’s character not through the lens of my pain and my brokenness, but through His pledge and through His beauty.

I saw His faithfulness. I saw His consistency. It blessed me.

We have a testimony in the Word of who our God is. Recently I’ve been studying through Ephesians, and it’s been so beautiful. Every book I study, I’m, like, “Man, this is the best book ever! Why didn’t I study it sooner?” Two of the themes in Ephesians is the fact that God reconciles us to Himself through Christ, and then He reconciles us to one another.

In the context of this book, Ephesians, you have Paul writing to these Gentile believers. There’s not one particular issue. However, we do see that there is some ethnic hostility. We see that in the mix: there are Jews, and there are Gentiles. There is division over how they should be taught.

Paul says, “You’re saved by grace through faith.” But there were certain Jews who said, “Well, you need to follow these traditions and these laws.”

Paul’s, like, “No.”

Paul receives hostility because of that, and these believers receive hostility because he’s standing on the gospel. That, “No. It’s not about tradition. It’s not about these laws. It’s about the fact that we’re saved by grace through faith.”

The reason I tell this is because the first chapter of Ephesians (When you get a moment, I want you to go back and reread it.) Paul goes into this beautiful breakdown of all of this theology. In there he talks about what I see as this fatherly blessing that we have as believers, and we have it in Christ.

He says, “Every spiritual blessing is in Christ.” I just see it like what a father should be as a father ministers to his children. Paul says, “You have the blessing of election, and you have the blessing of adoption, the blessing of redemption, and the blessing of the Holy Spirit, and the blessing of an inheritance.” Paul fleshes that out for the believers.

Now, I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the blessing of adoption which is at the end of verses 4 and 5. He says, “In love he, (speaking of God the Father) predestined us for adoption to himself as sons.”

This blessing of adoption is accessed through Jesus, the Son of God. As we have believed in Jesus, we now have become sons. I actually like the term sons. I know it’s a masculine term, but I think it just points to the fact that we’re united to Jesus. So all that Jesus has received and has because God is His Father, we have received, and we have now because God is our Father.

So, God the Father is the original father. Right? He is the Father of Christ. And our Brother Jesus became our substitute. Our sins were imputed on Him. His righteousness was imputed to us. That great exchange happened.

There’s a quote by Martin Luther on this that I love. He says, “Lord Jesus, You are My righteousness, and I am Your sin. You took on You what was mine. Yet set on me what was Yours. You became what You were not that I might become what I was not.”

We now have everything that belongs to Jesus. So we’re no longer a slave. God the Father is not merely tolerating us. He didn’t grumble when we came to faith. We are actually heirs with Christ. We are children of God.

Romans 8:17 says, “And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

And I don’t want you to miss that motivator where he begins there in that sentence in Ephesians. He said this adoption, the cause of it, the reason we have it, it was done in love—in love. That’s what allows us to have this permanent, predetermined place in God’s family. Scripture says, “In love He predestined us for adoption.”

And that truth, that reality, that God did this intentionally in love, it really shattered any idea that I had of God as merely tolerating me. He’s not merely tolerating us. He loves us. He chose to love us and chooses to love us. He is love.

And when the Bible speaks of love for the believer, it’s always connected to the gospel. It’s always connected, often, to Jesus’ sacrifice. His love, Jesus’ love, is what brings us into the family of God.

It’s all according to the purpose of God’s will. The Scripture says, “Even before the foundation of the world,” this was something that God worked out before we were born. He said, “I’m going to choose to love you, and I’m going to send My Son in order to accomplish this.”

So when you came to Christ, you were not twisting God’s arm. It was the Father’s will to bless you with Himself. Adopted children have their possession by grace, not birthright.

J.I. Packer in Knowing God says, “Justification is the primary blessing because it meets our primary spiritual need. But this is not to say that justification is the highest blessing of the gospel. Adoption is higher because of the richer relationship with God that it involves.”

I like to think of it, like, if justification takes you into the courtroom, adoption takes you into the family room. We have a family.

Jesus says, “In My house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you”—for you. Tuck that away. For you. You. And you. And you. And you. And you. And you. And you. He’s gone to prepare a place for you. You have a place in the family of God.

And the more we gaze upon our heavenly Father, and we allow Him to define who He is, we become a restored daughter. I think we begin to heal. There’s that vertical healing that has to take place between us and God often. And digging in the Scripture, I think, is where that takes place. It’s not going to happen as we view God through the lens of our pain. We have to open up the Scripture and just say, “Okay, well, who are You? Allow the Scriptures to define who You are.”

As we do that and that vertical healing happens, then there’s a horizontal healing that needs to take place. I want to talk about that, that horizontal healing between us and our parents.

Often, those things can be happening simultaneously because this is a sanctification process. It’s not like, “Okay, have everything figured out with God, and so now I can begin the journey.” We’re never going to have it all figured out. God is working in our life vertically. He’s ministering to us, encouraging us, strengthening us, maturing us.

As a result, it’s blessing our relationships. That’s what Scripture says, “If you say you love God, who you’ve not seen, you can’t hate your brother who you do see.” So there’s a connection between us loving God and us loving those people He’s placed—sovereignly placed—in our life. Like, He’s sovereignly chosen our families, as hard as our circumstances may be.

And Ephesians . . . I want to jump back there real quick because I mentioned this ethnic hostility. Paul says that there’s a wall of hostility. So there were Jews and Gentiles, and, literally, a wall of hostility. Why do I say “literally a wall of hostility”?

In Jerusalem, in the temple, Herod’s temple, there were four separate courts. So there was the outermost courtyard area, farthest from the Most Holy Place. And that was called the Court of the Gentiles. This was the only place the Gentiles or foreigners or those who were viewed as impure could gather. They could go no further in the temple area because there was this literal wall. If they crossed that, they actually could die, so this wall kept them out.

But Paul tells them, “This wall has been torn down.” I want you to keep in mind when this letter was written. I find it interesting. This letter was written in 61 A.D. So, was there a physical temple still there? Yes. The temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. These Gentile believers, which most of us are Gentile believers, they could not enter the inner courts of the physical temple because they were viewed as unclean. They were defiled because of their natural heritage.

So what did God do? God broke past their natural heritage. They could not approach the God of this temple, the holy of Holies. So God did the unthinkable. God went to them—Immanuel, God with us. And what He did, He filled them with Himself. The Scripture says, “He filled them with all the fullness of God.” It says in Ephesians. They could not enter the physical temple, so He made them a spiritual temple where He dwells in them.

The reason I bring this text up is because it’s been extremely encouraging for me, and not that this topic has to do with ethnic hostility. I do think that there can be hostility between us and God. There can be things keeping us away from God. Sometimes it has to do with our natural heritage. But God says, “I’m going to draw close to those whether unclean, whether the orphan, the wayward, those who are viewed as the outcast. I’m going to come to you so now you can walk in your newfound identity because now you are the temple of God. You are now filled with the Holy Spirit. You are now the family of God. You’re the Body of Christ. I’m coming to you.”

He does a work in us. God draws near to them because He’s their Father and they are His children, and He loves them. He loves the people spoken of in Ephesians. But also, God draws near to us because He’s our Father and we are His children, and He loves us.

God desires to fill us with all the fullness of Himself, and that means we need to know who the Father is through the Son and be indwelt by the Spirit. When we’re indwelt by His Spirit, then and only then can we walk in the Spirit, which is also spoken of in Ephesians. And that horizontal, victorious living comes only through the Spirit.

I just want to be clear and frank with you. The life that the Lord is calling you to walk out as it relates to your earthly parents, you’re going to need the Holy Spirit in order to do it because when your biological father is spiritually or emotionally or physically absent, and you’re the believer, you’re going to have to be the mature one. You’re going to have to be the bigger person. You’re going to need to do it in the Spirit.

In the book, I walk through some practical things that I’ve done, and am still doing, in order to be victorious over fatherlessness. I just want to walk through four practical things that you can do to live victoriously as you walk in the Spirit.

First, I want to encourage you to write your story down. Write your story down.

Be willing to do the hard work of unearthing your story that’s hibernating in your heart. As I’ve said before, try to do it without judging yourself. Just get a journal, and just find a place to write. It may be helpful to write your father a letter, even if you don’t send it. What is it that you would like to share with your father? How has his absence affected you?

I want you to say everything that you’ve always wanted to say, even if you’ll never send it. Your father could have already passed away. He may never receive the letter. But I want you to get down your thoughts and tell your story and how you feel about your father’s absence.

Another thing you could do is write God a letter. Tell God how difficult it’s been.

It’s why I asked the first question about what’s your word or words because I think it’s a good starting point. Facing the truth about our wounds, I think, is the first step to healing. It helps us know what’s going on in our hearts so that we can actually start this process of giving those hurts and those pains over to the Lord.

So ask the Holy Spirit to help you to tell the truth. As you write your story down, I want you to, number two, I want you to pray for your parents. If your parents are living, pray for them as often as they come to mind. You may not even know where your father is. You don’t know if he’s alive or not. You can still pray for him because he might be alive.

As I mentioned, so many of our parents are spiritually lost and emotionally broken. Pray that they would know and model their Father in heaven, the True Father. Pray that they would come to know God as Father.

And number three, ask God to help you to forgive.

Now, if you’re struggling with unforgiveness . . . I have been there. I know it’s not easy. It’s something I have learned in the process. Some of you talk about forgiveness like it’s just one and done. Like, you just forgive, and then you move on. But sometimes, especially if the person is still in your life, or you could be reflecting upon those hurts, it’s like those wounds are just open again and again and again.

And something I’ve realized is that forgiveness is a continual process. It’s like waking up every day and choosing, “I’m going to forgive that person. I’m going to forgive my parents.”

Maybe they do something else to hurt . . . “I’m going to forgive them again.” Making that choice consistently.

I do want to give a caveat, though: forgiveness does not mean putting yourself in danger. I just want to be clear about that. If you’ve experienced abuse, that does not mean you have to just pretend as though there’s no abuse and you walk into a hostile, dangerous situation. That’s not what I’m saying.

I think oftentimes, forgiveness can require boundaries. I think there can be healthy boundaries that are established when you forgive someone who still has the power to harm.

But a helpful place to begin, if you’re struggling with unforgiveness, is Matthew 18. The parable of the unmerciful servant has been tremendously helpful in my life. It helps us to reflect on how much we have been forgiven.

When we see ourself in light of God . . . We often see ourself and comparing ourself to others. It’s like, “Well, okay, I may be doing it better than you. I didn’t do that bad.”

But when God is the standard—His standard of perfection—we realize, “God, You’re holy. You’re without blemish. I have sinned against You, and You have forgiven me? How can I, a sinner, say I’m not willing to forgive another sinner when a holy God has forgiven me?”

But I understand it takes time. I understand, as I said, it is a continual process of forgiveness. So ask God to help you to forgive.

I think it can be helpful to get accountability with that as well. Even if you’re unsure, “Should I walk into this situation?” If there are godly people around you who can give you counsel, give you wisdom on the situation on whether it’s healthy to walk in there, I think it would be wise to seek out godly counsel.

And then number four that goes with that, is prioritize your redeemed family.

One of the things that Scripture does is it prioritizes the church family. Jesus says, “Who is My mother? Who is My sister or brother?” Notice, He didn’t say, “Who is My Father?” He knew who His Father was. But He says, “Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Something that I think is often missed when it comes to spiritual adoption is we talk about the fact that we have a Father in God, but we miss the fact that we have a family in the Church. We have a whole new family. As a spiritual family, we actually should be welcomed as family. I know, unfortunately, not everyone has even had that experience.

I talk about in the book of having dealt with spiritual abuse in the context of my local church years ago. It’s hard when you’ve suffered under your biological family in ways, and then you’ve suffered under your church family in other ways.

But I do want to encourage you not to give up on the people of God, because we’re all sinful. We know there’s no perfect church. And my prayer is just, in my situation it was a wolf who was leading that flock. My prayer is that the Lord will guard you from those who are seeking to destroy the sheep, and that you would find yourself planted, rooted in a healthy, local church where there are people there you can trust, godly people who are striving for the same goal.

I wonder if you have an older, godly person in your life or in your church that maybe you could follow as they follow Christ, someone that you can confide in, to say, “You know, I need some help. I need somebody to walk with me through this. My dad never walked through with me . . . walk with me through finances (for example).”

Are there any godly people in your church context who could bring on what I call holistic discipleship?

Sometimes when we think of discipleship, we only think about opening up the Bible, which is really important that we open up the Bible, but it doesn’t stop there. I think we can talk about finances and life decisions and understanding how to be a wife and mother, because I never saw it modeled.

It was the church that the Lord really used in my life to teach me those things and help encourage me and walk me through: What does it look like? What does it look like to have family worship? What does it look like to sit down at the table and have dinner? We didn’t do that growing up, not consistently. My sister and I would sit at the table, but my mom was a working mom and busy.

What does it look like to sing together and pray together and fellowship with one another?

I think there can be times where, at least there were times in my life, where I needed to break free from my natural response to flee when things got really hard. I was never used to being consistent with a thing, because when I didn’t like it, I just fled. We moved twenty-five times throughout my childhood. So I was used to if you don’t like something, just move on. There was no stability.

What does it look like to be married? I’ve been married for twelve years. To be married and content and to mother and do the day to day and not try to leave my husband because my mom was the one who was leading our family. I came from a very strong woman. She did everything. She was the one who was there to absorb all of the . . . When the bills came in and we couldn’t pay and we needed to get evicted again, she absorbed those things. She had to figure it out.

So, what does it look like to let my husband lead? We need help. I think the Church is our mother and our sister and our brother, not our capital-f father, but there can be godly men that can be a good model, a healthy, pure model of what it looks like to lead the family.

So think about: who is in your community, who is in your local church that you might be able to model and say, “I’m going to just invite myself over to your house. I’m coming over for dinner. Just set another place for me”?

Ask God to help point you towards someone who would care well for you. And I do want to say, not misuse your vulnerability because they fear God and they know that you are family.

Now, I do want to give a word of application for those here. You may have had a wonderful father, and you want to care for the fatherless. Just to kind of summarize, I just want to let you know there are so many Scriptures throughout the Bible where God speaks about the fatherless. There’s so many texts in the Old and New Testament where He says, “I want the Church specifically to care for the fatherless.” And we are, as I said, a family. We’re members of the household of God. We are one.

And just to name a few:

Deuteronomy 10:18, “He executes justice for the fatherless.”

Psalm 68:5, “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.”

Psalm 82:3, “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless.”

Isaiah 1:23, “They do not bring justice to the fatherless and the widow’s cause does not come to them.”

And a passage that we’re familiar with in James, the brother of Jesus, he says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans [I think we often think of those who are adopted or fostered, but the fatherless fit into that category.] and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27).

So, it’s the Church’s responsibility. This is the true religion that we’re called to as believers. And the Scripture says, “As we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially those who belong to the family of believers.” That’s Galatians 6:10.

So, it is important for us to come alongside one another and care for one another.

Your father may not have been what you wanted him to be in your life. If you were fatherless, I just want to say, “But God . . .” Those cycles of sin, they can stop with you because of the gospel. And God doesn’t leave you alone. He’s given you Himself, and He’s given you a family. And because of Him, by God’s grace, we can get through this together.

So I do want to leave some time open for Q & A, but I do have one last question that I just want you to write down and consider: What truth can I cling to now because of what my heavenly Father accomplished? 

Are there any questions that we can take? I know we have maybe, what, ten minutes or so left. Any questions?

Blair: That’s a good question. If you didn’t hear the question, she was saying she works with college students as a counselor. Often as they’ve gone to college for the first time, they’re realizing that there are unhealthy trends or unhealthy things happening in their family. How do they deal with that when they have to go back for vacation or holiday breaks and things like that?

I think, for one, praise God for you because you’re doing the hard work of counseling those young people. I think when we go back, for one, especially whenever we get some new information, I think the temptation can be to go back and just kind of like a bull in a China shop and tear everything up. I guess I would think through, if it’s a healthy enough situation where there’s not abuse happening, then I would say you do want to begin to pray. You do want to go back asking the Lord to help you to be gracious with those who are your family.

If there are ways to even gather some healthy tools . . . So if you could see a counselor to be equipped with the proper tools on how to engage that person. But you are an adult. And so I would say, if it’s unsafe for you to go back, I would say, “Don’t go back.”

But it would be a case-by-case situation if I were counseling that person. But if we’re talking sexual abuse or spiritual abuse, this is really affecting the person. Every time they’re in the presence of their parents, they’re just on this emotional roller coaster and dealing with anxiety and things like that, then I would be cautious about saying, “Oh, yeah, just go right back.”

But if it were just some unhealthy things done, just a kind of general fallenness versus you’re really going to be put in danger . . . I don’t know if that makes sense. But I would distinguish between those categories. It’s kind of hard not knowing the specifics.

Any other questions?

Question: Regarding single moms.

Blair: Yes. Praise the Lord for any single mothers who are in the room. It’s not an easy job. I would say, never speak negative about your spouse or the child’s father. My mom never did, and I’m grateful for that. You want to be careful about the words that you use.

I think you would want to be a shoulder for your child to make sure that they can communicate how they’re feeling and voice their concerns with you. I would say, if there’s a way . . . Again, it kind of depends on the circumstance.

I have a sister for whom I know the father is an unbeliever. So when that child goes into the father’s home, there’s a lot of dysfunction. He’s on his phone, not really paying attention the child. So there’s a lot of hurt there that the child is dealing with.

But you have to co-parent. I would just say be careful with your words. The challenging thing is we can’t control anyone. We can’t control what they’re going to say or what they’re going to do around that child. But what you can do is when the child is in your presence, is you can minister to that child

I would pour in Scripture to that child. I would teach that child how to discern that which is pleasing to God versus that which is not. What does it look like to be a leader? What does it look like to stand for that which is right?

I would just try to encourage and fill my child with as much truth as I can and pray as hard as I can that the Lord would be merciful and save that child, because the Lord is mighty to save. Honestly, you could be in a two-parent household with believing parents, and that child not come to the Lord. You could be in an unbelieving household where none of the parents know the Lord, and that child comes to the Lord. So I would pray hard.

My grandmother would often pray for me, and I am the result of a praying grandmother. You may be a grandmother, too, and you’re, like, “How do I minister to my grandchild who’s dealing with this?” Pray. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Amen. God hears the cry of His people.

Yes?

Question: Who is the book written for?

Blair: That’s a good question. Yes, my book is not just for females. Actually, my husband writes a chapter in it specifically to men. But, yes, I just walk through my journey. And after this, I am actually going to go to the bookstore, if anyone’s interested in getting a book there.

Question: Personal situation

Blair: I would love to talk to you afterwards. It’s hard not knowing more about this situation. And some of it is kind of specific. So I would love to just have more time, if you have it, later.

Yes?

Question: How can men in the church come alongside?

Blair: I would say, if there’s a way to invite that young person to church, and maybe even to encourage the men in your church to mentor that person.

I was going to say, for single moms as well, to say, the call is on us as the Church to step up to the plate. So what does it look like for the godly men in your context to say, “I’m going to take that young man fishing, or we’re going to go to camp,” or “I’m going to take him to the store,” or “We’re going to have the talk,” or whatever is needed. I think the Church has to step in.

Bringing them around the church so that they can see: what does it look like to have a healthy father? They can see with their own eyes a healthy example of a man and a father.

Does that answer your question?

Question

Blair: Yes. So, for me, it honestly took some years into my walk with the Lord. When I talk about feeling like God was just a judge, that’s really all I saw Him as—just a hard judge that just saved me. It’s like, “Okay, that’s what God does. He saves people.” But I was missing that personal aspect.

That’s what we see in the Scripture. God chose each one of us who are in the household of faith. He chose us in love. It wasn’t by accident. It wasn’t just like, “I woke up one day,” God said, “Yeah, okay. I’ll save the people.”

No. He intentionally chose to . . . The more we spend time in the Word, I think the more and more we’ll understand who our heavenly Father is, we’ll be rooted more deeply in who He is, but also who He says we are. We’ll have that new-found identity. As I was saying, those that Paul was ministering to in the book of Ephesians, they felt like they were outsiders. But just say, “No. There’s no more hostility. God has chosen me, and He did it while I was still in my sin.”

So it’s not based upon my goodness. It’s not like He said, “Oh, Blair, yes. She’s going to be great. Or, I like the way she thinks, so I’m going to save her.”

No. It’s by grace through faith that He has chosen to save us. I think it just seems real simple, but just by holding on to who God says He is, and holding on to who God says you are, or those children are, if they belong to Him.

I know another thing that some have done is they have gotten the book, and they’ve walked through it with others. If that might be helpful because I do go into more detail about my story. That might give them an opportunity to share more if you walk alongside a younger person with it.

Yes? One more. Last one.

Question: Who can a young person look to for counsel?

Blair: Is that father a believer? Oh, he doesn’t profess to be a believer. I think, that’s hard. I mean, it could be hard for a believer as well. Is the mom in the home? Not really. Sometimes. Okay. That is hard. I would pray for that person.

I would say: Is there any man in their life who the father respects that maybe could have the father’s ear? I know it’s hard because, again, if you know the person . . . If there is another person that they were close to or if there’s a grandparent that maybe they could go to and just kind of share, if it’s a safe situation. Sometimes sharing those things are not the safest situation with an outsider. But if it were a safe situation, I would say: could you share in a respectful way to another adult who might be able to have a conversation with that father about it? Could that child, again, depending on the finances, could that child say to their father: could I see a counselor?

Yes. It’s kind of hard not knowing the dynamics, but I would go with trying to find another peer of that father that might be respected who might be able to communicate and be a source of protection for the child but also communicate clearly with that father. That’s my thought there, just offhand.

Question: What age is your book written for?

Blair: All ages. Yes. It’s a trade book. It’s written for adults. But I would say, probably a teenager up could be helped by it.

Let me pray: Our Father in heaven, we thank You, Lord, that because of Your mercy and because of Your grace, we can call You Father. Your Word says we can cry out, “Abba Father.” And You are with us because of Christ.

We thank You, Father, for these women who are here, gathered just seeking to either heal from their own pain or also to walk alongside others who are dealing with pain. And I just pray, Lord, that You would be all of our help. Would You please give wisdom and direction?

I pray that You would heal any hurts that are in this room. I pray for those who are just navigating very difficult circumstances as they seek to care for others. Lord, would You give them wisdom as they counsel others?

I pray for those who have adopted and are dealing with just the hardship of children who have not appreciated that care.

I pray that You would meet all of the needs, Lord, that are here.

Help us, Father, to know You for who You are, and help us to know who You’ve called us to be so that we can walk victoriously.

I pray for those who are struggling with forgiveness, Lord. Would You help us to forgive our parents, Lord? Help us not to be victims, but help us to live victoriously.

In the name of Jesus I pray, amen.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.