What does it mean to be a father? As a little girl I remember waiting with anticipation for my dad to come home from the steel mill. He worked three different rotating shifts. The morning: seven to three. The afternoon shift: three to eleven. The evening shift: eleven to seven.
He seemed to work the morning shift more during the summer. My twin sister and I would be outside playing kickball or steel the caps or lost in a world of our imagination and we would hear his car drive up. No matter what we were doing, we would take off running calling to him, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy”! I don’t know why seeing him drive up brought us such joy, but it did. Our joy did not wane even though my dad was somewhat emotionally disconnected from us. However, he always seemed happy to see us running to him. He’d smile, pick us up and give us a nickel for a Popsicle. Although he loved us and we loved him, I never felt a sense of security with him. Security and unconditional love was something my mother provided.
It’s good to know that for those of us whose fathers may not have been all we would have liked, or may not have been there at all; there is a Father who loves us regardless of our shortcomings and failures. A Father who never runs out of time to listen, is never impatient, or uncaring or “disconnected.” That’s the Father we share with the men and women who come to Haven of Rest. We want them to know the security of a Father’s love and the hope they have in Him for a fresh start and new life.
My father is in a nursing home now unable to walk or speak, but in his eyes I see the memories of all those hot, summer afternoons and I hear the shrieks of joy from my sister and I as he tossed us in the air and caught us in his arms. He once told us he did the best he could as a father, and I believe him. Whatever was lacking in my dad I know is available through my heavenly Father. In my dad’s eyes are memories of yesterday, but in the “eyes” of my heavenly Father is the calm assurance of eternal life through His Son Jesus Christ, and I feel very secure.
Yvonne M. Brake, MNO
Director of Development
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