The Father Issue

Working with people in support groups over a number of years it amazed me how many participants—both men and women—had a father issue. That is, they felt that their father was never or rarely involved in their life either physically and/or emotionally when they were a child and/or a teenager. All of these people have a deep father wound because they never received their father’s affirmation or blessing.

Popular author and psychologist, Gary Smalley, lists some key answers received after asking one hundred people how they knew that they had received their father’s blessing. Following are some of the answers he received:

1. "My father would put his arm around me at church and let me lay my head on his shoulder."

2. "When my father was facing being transferred at work, he purposely took another job so that I could finish my senior year in high school at the same school."

3. "When I wrecked my parent's car, my father's first reaction was to hug me and let me cry instead of yelling at me."

4. "When I was thirteen, my dad trusted me to use his favorite hunting rifle when I was invited to go hunting with a friend and his father."

5. "My father went with me when I had to take back an ugly dress a saleswoman had talked me into buying."

6. "My father would let me practice pitching to him for a long time when he got home from work."

7. "Even though I had never seen him cry before, my father cried during my wedding because he was going to miss me no longer being at home."

For those of us who have had or still have an unresolved father issue we know the pain of missing out on our father’s blessing. For fathers of children/teens who are reading this article, I trust you will realize the crucial role you play in the emotional and spiritual development of your children. With your blessing they have a much greater chance of having a fulfilling life and a healthy marriage and family life.

But without your blessing they may, like millions of others, spend the rest of their life seeking love in all the wrong ways and places albeit in an unconscious and desperate attempt to fill the empty place in their heart caused by a lack of their father’s blessing and their subsequent father wound.

Suggested prayer (if you have a father wound): “Dear God, thank you for helping me to see that I never received my father’s blessing. Please lead me to the help I need for the healing and recovery of my father wound. (If you are a father): Please help me to be the father my children need so they will know without a shadow of a doubt that they have my full blessing. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

“A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.” (Psalm 68:5)