Daughter, Look Up!

I cringed as I watched the young fathers fully engage with their children during the video shown on Father’s Day this year.

Before beginning his sermon, Pastor played a short video highlighting dads

for Father’s Day. Kindness. Understanding. Teaching. Togetherness.

The words were in your face as they took flight across the screen.

But I could not relate.

I remember none of those things in my father as a young girl.

Don’t misunderstand.

My dad was not abusive. Not verbally or physically. He loved my mother

and we knew it. He called her “Boz” a term of endearment whose origin he

took to the grave.

Yet, I have no clear memories of being “daddy’s little girl”, him holding my

hand or teaching me to ride a bike. My mom did those things. She taught

me to cut with scissors and play Gin Rummy. She salvaged the infamous

Swedish meatball disaster while letting me have reign in our little Brooklyn

kitchen.

But dad? To be honest, dad was gone twelve hours a day, returning from his commute to lower Manhattan at 7:00 pm each weekday night. My mother had already fed me and my two younger sisters so she could eat alone with him, and our only complete family meals were on Saturdays and Sundays after Sunday Mass and before the Ed Sullivan Show.

Dad was from a far different generation. Fathers of his generation weren’t present in the delivery room. They didn’t get hundreds of likes from TikTok videos of the gender reveal. They certainly didn’t attend the baby shower along with other men.

Yet, there my dad was, steady as a rock, spending 4 hours on a bus every day and always providing for us. We took the National Lampoon-type family vacations in our ’67 Bel Air station wagon with grandma and the dog to the Poconos. My sister and I rode in the way back seat, sans seat belts, with our new Barbie coloring books and fresh 64 box of Crayola crayons.

Yet I always felt that something was missing, and I didn’t realize it until I was much older-he never told me he loved me until I was in my 50s. At least I don’t recall it if he did. It wasn’t natural for those words to leave his mouth.

By then I understood that his love for me was there, just unspoken. It was shown in how he loved my mother, how he was faithful to her and to us girls. He didn’t stop at the bar on his way home. He didn’t swear or smoke. He didn’t gamble but instead took us to Mass every Sunday morning.

By then I also learned that my worth didn’t come from what my earthly dad said or didn’t say. I learned my worth came instead from my heavenly Father. What He said about me. What He did for me. What He thought about me.

The Father knew me before I was born. Jeremiah 1:5, Isaiah 49:1

He made me fearfully and wonderfully. Psalm 139:13-16

He loves me in the quiet, in the whispers to my innermost being. Job 33:15-17

He covered me with grace and mercy that I cannot earn nor do I deserve. Ephesians 2:8-9

He has written me in the palm of His hand. Isaiah 49:16

Dear sisters, maybe your dad was there physically but like mine, couldn’t relate to three little girls the way dad do now. Maybe your dad was physically abusive or hurt you when he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Perhaps you don’t even know your father.

Maybe you’re bitter or neglected, or like me, can’t relate to all the dads on social media who brush their daughter’s hair, takes her to the Father Daughter Dance or make pancakes with her on Saturday mornings.

But daughter……………..look up! Isaiah 40:26

Your worth isn’t based on the relationship you had or didn’t have. Your value, your worth, and your identity all come from your relationship with our heavenly Father. He thought about YOU before you were a seed planted in your mother’s womb.

He nurtured your development cell by cell, organ by organ. Psalm 139: 13-16

He gifted you with talents and skills before you drew your first breath. 1 Peter 4:10

He calls you daughter. 1 John 3:1-2

He calls you a daughter of the King. 2 Corinthians 6:18

He calls you heir to His throne of grace. Titus 3:7

Wipe away the tears of rejection and pain. And dare I say….forgive your earthly father. Let God heal your heart and fill you with the assurance that you are His daughter. You are loved with a love that no earthly father could ever muster. His love for you is eternal, without bounds and when you see the Father face to face someday, every tear will be wiped away.

Then and only then will one love will remain.

Jennifer Arbach