Born without a father?

On June 19, 2011, a young girl will experience her first Father’s Day without her dad. On June 7, eleven days before, this girl came into the world just hours after her father left it.

I remember my first Father’s Day without my dad. It was as hard as I imagined it would be, about 3 ½ months after he died. I was away from home on vacation, and in the teen group at the church I visited, the leader asked for all of us who “have a godly dad at your home” to raise our hands (why he did this, I do not know, but I could tell he regretted it after three of eight kids didn't respond). With two other visitors, I sat there wondering if I qualified because technically, my godly dad wasn't in my home.

This young girl in NY probably won’t have to worry about explaining things to people for a while. She won’t have to deal with the shock of death when she's a child, or the realization that life is really hard before she’s old enough to understand how to deal with it.

In some ways, I envy her ignorance and inexperience in life. It’s easy for us to wish things had never happened, to wish we had never had to experience something and feel the pain so many people around us haven’t known. It’s easy to believe that life would be so much better if we didn't have the burden of grief to carry with us. If only, like her, we were blissfully ignorant to how deeply painful loss is. Sometimes I wonder, maybe it wouldn't be so hard not to have a father if I hadn't had one and lost him.

But I know that this girl in NY will grow up and feel just the opposite. With absolutely no memories of her dad, she will spend a lot of time wishing he were there, wondering what life could have been. She will believe that, if her dad had to die, she would be willing to endure any kind of grief later in life if only she had a few more years with him.

And that is where she will envy a person like me, who had fourteen more years of Father’s Days' with a father than she will ever have. While I’m jealous that she won’t have to know the pain of having and losing a father, she will wish she had a father to lose in the first place.

Isn't this how we spend our emotional energy sometimes? Whether it's about a job, a friend, a relationship, or something as great as death, how much time do we waste wondering what could have happened, thinking our lives could be better, wondering if God got something wrong.

In considering our two lives, mine of loss and hers of having nothing to lose, I must remember the most important lesson I've learned this year: that God is just. His sovereign control of everything is perfect, and everything he does in our lives is good, right, and best for us according to his master plan.

The real way that truth applies in this situation is that each of us has been given, by God, as much of our fathers that we need to make it through our lives: I, fourteen years; she, none. That is what God's justice means.

What does God's justice mean for your situation? It means that the life God gave you is the best one you could ever have. With all its mortality, suffering, and confusion, it's perfect because God is just and sovereign in his plans for us. Remember, God's goal is our Christlikeness, and that is the only state in life in which we can be truly happy.

On this Father’s Day, I remember that God’s right and good plan for that baby girl in NY and me doesn't only come in the form of the parent we have both lost. God gives us what we need in a father  in so many other friends and family who show us consistent love, and ultimately in himself. That is how God's justice works out in our lives. I pray this baby girl, as she grows older, will quickly come to know and trust in that God, as I do.

Then someday, perhaps, she will be able to join in what we who are fatherless honor on the 19th of June, the fact that, in God, we are not.

Sarah is a college student who blogs regularly at  Glimpses of God in Grief.