The Father You've Always Wanted

Father's day is just a few weeks away, so I have chosen a book on Fatherhood to feature in this post.

"How many of you did not have a father who knew how
to love and bless you?"

Ed McGlasson asked this question one evening when he was speaking, and the response was a sea of raised hands across the room.  It's an interesting question.  It is not "How many of you did not have a father who loved you..."  Though that may be true, sadly, for many.  This question allows that the fathers of the audience on that day DID love their children, but they did not know how to demonstrate it.  I wonder how many of those listening people understood the experience of an 83 year old Jewish man who told Ed, "All I ever wanted from my dad was for him to tell me one time that he loved me and that he was proud of me." 

Ed McGlasson's expertise in writing for dads comes from real, sometimes painful experience.  A father of five, he found that he was struggling to be the loving parent to them which he wanted to be.  He found it hard not to push his kids away from him when he was disappointed with them, and over-reacted when he was angry.  Busy trying to prove himself to those around him, he was pushing his kids to perform, because that's how his stepfather had parented him. But it wasn't the parent he wanted to be. 

He didn't want to be a 'better dad', he wanted his children to know without question that he loved them and was proud of them.  Despite good intentions and much effort he knew he was failing, and came to realise he needed something more.  Much more.  What he sought was an encounter with God which would turn his heart towards his children, as Mal 4:6 describes when it says God will "turn the hearts of fathers to their children and children to their fathers."  Ed wanted to know the hopes, dreams, passions and despairs of his children. 

He uses an example in the book when his son Lukas asks him whether he will still love him if he doesn't play football the next year.  Ed tells him that he will love him no matter what he chooses, and asks him what he wants to do instead.  Lukas, beaming, tells him that he has tried out for the tennis team, and made it in!  Ed writes:

"My son Lukas is like so many men and women I have met who feel trapped trying to live up to what they think their fathers want.  The fact I didn't know Lukas was interested in tennis taught me something: I wasn't close enough to his heart to know what his dream was.  But that's exactly what our job is as fathers.  We are called to listen to the heartbeat of our children's dreams, no matter how soft the sound, and call them forward in love toward wide and wonderful horizons."

This is a brave book.  Ed is very open in his own failings and frustrations as a parent, and as a believer.  His father died before he was born, and his stepfather parented harshly, with constant expectation and little affirmation.  Ed refers to this as broken parenting.  So when he became a parent himself, his frame of reference was also broken.  This issue of 'father wounds', caused by the failings of our earthly fathers is a major focus in this book and is tackled head on throughout. 

There are lots of examples and practical ideas in this book, and it is very compelling reading - even for a female who is not a parent!  I can recommend it to anyone who wants to understand God the father's true character better - rather than the God the Father we see through our father-hurt eyes - as well as to both fathers AND mothers desperate to parent their children with purpose, value and loving connection.

Full book information
You can pre-order the book via your local Christian bookshop, or any other bricks and mortar or online bookshop.
For digital readers, this is also available in ebook format.

"The Thing is, Everybody DOES Hurt..."

I've always hated the song “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. As a band, they always struck me as overly whiny and weaselly. R.E.M. was the guy in the perfect thrift-store ironic T-shirt, trying to find himself. Or the girl at the bookstore who was trying too hard to look casual. I’m from the middle of a cornfield (Hartford City, Indiana), and singing about how “everybody hurts” just seems soft, self-indulgent, and pointless.

But the thing is, everybody does hurt. Life (thirty-six years and counting) has shown me this. I’ve felt pain caused by others and, what’s worse, my own sin has caused mental, physical, and emotional pain in others. Everybody hurts, and sometimes because of me. And in the church we sometimes expect people to just shrug and say, “Well, it’s all part of God’s plan,” which isn’t necessarily untrue, but it’s a response that strikes me as a little inhuman and, if Scripture is to be believed, unspiritual. Job rent his garments and screamed, and the Bible said he was without sin in that particular situation. Jesus sweat blood in the garden. He didn’t just skip to the cross saying, “Hey, I know how this is going to work out, so it’s all good.” Pain is real, and it’s not necessarily unspiritual to acknowledge it. This book, in part, is an acknowledgment of pain and a reflection on what to do with it. My chapters are narrative in nature. By the ripe old(ish) age of thirty-six, one of the things I’ve learned about myself is that this, for better or worse, is how I write. This is a book about finding God in the dark. My chapters, in particular, will tell the stories of my “dark”—losing an adoption; experiencing professional failure; and then ultimately, by a movement of the Holy Spirit, confronting my own dark, sinful heart. Now, looking back, I am filled with thankfulness for these events because they are the events that God ordained for me to bring me into closer, deeper communion with Him. But in the midst of them, there was great pain.

Still, a temptation in reading a book like this, and narratives like these, would be to say, “Yeah, but Kluck hasn’t gone through ________. He hasn’t gone through what I’m going through.” I know this will be a temptation because I’ve said similar things myself about stories that belonged to other people. “Yeah, but . . .” I fully and openly acknowledge that there are many people who have gone through things that are much harder than the things I describe on these pages. But what’s worth acknowledging, I think, is that these are the circumstances that God put me through in a particular time, and a particular place, for a particular purpose (my good and His glory). I’ve tried to re-create them as accurately as possible, even though the process was, at times, more than a little painful. If you’re in Christ, you can trust that God is doing, and will do, the same for you in your circumstances. I’ve also tried to include Scripture that’s practical and relatable—the kinds of Scriptures you can pray through when you can’t seem to find the words or energy to pray on your own.

One of the things I’ve always struggled with in life is listening to spiritual input from anyone whom I hadn’t perceived as having gone through “deep waters.” My hope and prayer for this book is that by reading about my deep waters, you can love and trust God more through yours.

Humbly, in Christ,
Ted Kluck

The above is Ted's introduction to Finding God in the Dark.
Full book information and a sample chapter is available via the above link.
You can pre-order the book via your local Christian bookshop, or any other bricks and mortar or online bookshop.
For digital readers, this is also available in ebook format.