{"id":220,"date":"2019-06-14T14:50:05","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T14:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/?p=220"},"modified":"2019-06-14T15:05:11","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T15:05:11","slug":"a-fathers-lament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/?p=220","title":{"rendered":"A Father’s Lament"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This weekend is Father\u2019s Day. For me it is\nalways a difficult time of year. I have never given or sent someone a Father\u2019s\nDay card who was my father. It is difficult to praise or honor him for the\ntrauma he put me through as a child. \u201cYou are nothing but half-assed,\u201d he would\nsay. It remains a constant mantra throughout my life. And I wonder if my own\nchildren feel the hatred toward me that I have felt toward my own Dad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time of year brings up many emotions\nin me. Perhaps the feelings most prevalent are the feelings of shame being a\nfather to my own children. I don\u2019t know if they remember the bad days, the\nyelling, the spankens, the absence when I should have been there, the lack of\ninvolvement when I was involved in my own things, things I would have done\ndifferently, etc, ad infinitum. The list is a long one. But\u2026I remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shame of my perceived failures as a\nfather and the shoulds of what I wish I had done haunt me terribly. These crowd\nmy mind and only leave room for the self-contempt to grow. I am not certain\nthat any other Fathers experience this. I doubt my father ever did. He told me\nonce that he loved the bottle more than he loved me. Lack of honor and silence\nfrom my children only exacerbates my self-hatred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have recently been talking to God about\nthe self-condemnation inside my head. Many years ago I was told that I had \u201clow\nself-esteem.\u201d So, I tried to raise that by attending self-help conventions and\nreading self-help books. I met Art Linkletter, Paul Harvey, Zig Ziglar, and was\ngrabbed by the lapels and screamed at by Charlie \u201cTremendous\u201d Jones. As I began\nworking in the field of adolescent psychology, I joined the Speaker\u2019s Bureau\nand did talks on the topic, \u201cYou and Your Child\u2019s Self-esteem.\u201d I spoke to\nschools and churches all around Kansas City. That was, until at one church I opened\nit up for questions and a man asked, \u201cAre we born with self-esteem and then\nlose it? Or are we born without self-esteem and have to learn it.\u201d The question\nwas left unanswered. I didn\u2019t know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That question bugged me, so I went to my\nsource of truth and for ten long years wrote down every verse in the Bible\nabout having self-esteem. There are none. Even though some point to verses to\ntry and prove it, the Bible says we are not to think more highly of ourselves. There\nare hundreds of verses saying the opposite about self-love. We are not to be\narrogant and proud. After I read the part in the book of Revelation where they\nlooked for someone worthy to open \u201cthe book\u201d I found that only Jesus Christ was\nworthy. I went from thinking, \u201cOnly what you are in yourself makes you worthy.\u201d\nTo \u201cOnly what you are in Christ makes you worthy.\u201d To finally, \u201cOnly Christ is\nworthy.\u201d I walked away from the idea of seeking self-esteem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the next thirty years I practiced this. Yet, I had such contempt for myself that I thought it made me humble. Actually, it made me self-centered. I am bad. I am no good. I can\u2019t do anything right. Notice the \u201cI\u201ds? I went to the extreme. Pride was the opposite extreme and I stayed as far from pride as I could. I discounted what I did well. I side-stepped other\u2019s compliments. But in doing so, I now realize that I have been telling God that I was better than Him. That He can forgive sin, but I cannot. My self-condemnation was stronger than my salvation. I had forgotten that He made me. That He forgave me. That He loves me. I have lost the idea of being kind to myself and praising God for being wonderfully made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I once went to the pastor I worked under\nand sat across his desk telling him all the things I did wrong, and neglected,\nand failed to do in my ministry there. He looked at me and said, \u201cI have no\nidea what you are talking about.\u201d I sluffed it off as him being ignorant and\nunobservant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has to be a balance. Yes, sin is\nbad. And I identified as a sinner\u2014a bad person\u2014and tried to convince God that He\nwas wrong when He looked at me through the filter of Christ\u2019s blood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, slowly, I am learning to apply God\u2019s\nloving-kindness to myself and attempting to change the constant contempt to\npraising Him for the truth of who and what I am. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, the shame and guilt of long ago failures and perceived neglect regarding my children cry out from the grave during Father\u2019s Day. And, I find myself wanting to apologize for the sins only I remember. Therefore, I pray\u2026Dear Lord, I\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend is Father\u2019s Day. For me it is always a difficult time of year. I have never given or sent someone a Father\u2019s Day card who was my father. It is difficult to praise or honor him for the trauma he put me through as a child. \u201cYou are nothing but half-assed,\u201d he would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[31,30,29],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}