She Knows

“I shared the two most important things my father taught me with my friend.”

She Knows

“He said he wished he’d paid much more attention to the lessons my father had taught to our youth group when we were younger.”  She said.

She paused, as if for emphasis.

“I then told him what the two most important things I learned from my father were.”

As circumstances, age, experience and conditions change in our lives, the things we’ve learned from our fathers seem to be refreshed and come into active memory, just in time.  Different lessons, once offered at another time and place, seem to dance into and then speak to our hearts and minds, becoming essential for our current moments.  So, the two most important things she said she learned from her father may have risen to the top of her heart, just because of the health, professional and economic events we’ve all experienced over the past eighteen, or so months.

“The first thing my father taught me is that innovation is the result of trouble or struggle.  The second is that there is always opportunity, even in the worst of times. Look for it and it will appear!”  She explained to her friend who had been experiencing both personal and professional challenges for an extended period.

She’s found that such fatherly-teaching not only has the capacity to help the hearts and minds of its intended recipients, it can additionally be extended to the benefit of multiple generations and unknown future connections.

“He really needs a father right now!”  She continued, by talking about how she has shared the benefits of her own received fatherly-teaching with her friend.  “So, I thought it would be good to share mine!”

She knows that being a father is much more than a simple biological relationship.  It isn’t even necessarily tied to legal adoption.  It’s much more about accepting the responsibility of acting as a father to others.  That means gathering up a life-time of experience and love and then transferring it to anyone who will accept it.

“After talking with my friend, I asked my dad if he would mind becoming a father to my friend as well.  Of course, he said, ‘yes!’  In fact, my dad made a quick call to my friend immediately after we talked.  Now my friend feels his warm fatherly-embrace too.  Perhaps I can best describe it as enjoying a big teddy bear hug all the time.”

She’s learned that being a father means offering security to others, even if he, her father, doesn’t feel all too secure himself at the time.

“You said you’d always have a place for me!”  She once said in despair to her dad when he told her he was selling her childhood home.  

“He replied, ‘I do have a place for you.  It’s just a different place!’  When he said that, I was reassured that he’d still be there for me.  Even when the “there” was different.  I just needed to hear and feel the confirmation from him.”

Such validation returned to her heart as she talked with a friend in need. “He said he wished he’d paid more attention to the lessons my father had taught to our youth group when we were younger.”

She paused, as if for emphasis.

“I then told him what the two most important things I learned from my father were, so he’d have increased confidence!”

She knows!  She knows that true fatherhood should be a gift that keeps on giving to everyone.