In 1990, my youth group and I attended a Bryan Duncan concert. Opening the concert was an unknown group to me at the time. I do not remember the second half of the concert at all. In the middle of the opening act, Bob Carlisle, lead singer for Allies, began talking about the difference between his and his wife’s views of God when they were first married. Carlisle thought God to be the Zeus type, ready to throw bolts of lightning at a single misstep, demanding unwavering respect, and distant from His creation. I’ll never forget, however, the description of God as his wife encountered Him. What follows is my best attempt at retelling the story. 

“…My wife refers to God as Abba. In Hebrew, Abba means Daddy. It’s an intimate understanding of a child’s relationship with their father…as a daddy. She had a great relationship with her daddy and it transferred to her view of God. She wanted to call God by a name that indicated the same intimate relationship a little girl has with her daddy. The little girl doesn’t worry about grown-up issues because Daddy takes care of them. She doesn’t worry about angering her daddy because he always has time for her. And she doesn’t worry about tomorrow because she’s caught up in the here and now talking with her daddy. For my wife, the name Abba God fit that relationship better. When things get stressful and difficult for my wife, she closes her eyes and pictures herself curled up on Abba’s lap while He plays with her hair…”

That last sentence haunted me for decades. I grew up in a broken family. I had a father, not a daddy. In fact, my father asked me to stop calling him Dad or Daddy because he felt Father was more respectful. When his marriage to my step-mother ended in divorce, our relationship ceased to have any resemblance to healthy.

As I moved through Bible college, I still wrestled with the idea that I could have an intimate relationship where God would let me curl up into His lap and listen to my worries, my boo-boos, and my victories. When I was diagnosed with Acromegaly, I was angry at God and expected a lightning bolt for the many tantrums I threw directed toward my Creator. A year after I was diagnosed, I received an almost clean bill of health.

“We don’t know what’s happened, Thom, but you no longer have the pituitary tumor nor the disease in your bloodstream.”

“I do,” I told the Endocrinologist, “God healed me.” I was ecstatic…until I comprehended the doctor’s next piece of news.

“Our tests show that you may never have children, though.” My life entered a tail-spin. Selfishly, I wanted to have children. I wanted to prove that I didn’t have to be like my father. I wanted to prove that the mold could be broken and I could be a dad. With the announcement brought the certainty that no one would ever consider marrying me, that I was broken. I gave up all dreams of being a dad.

When Amy and I were dating – very early on – I made sure she understood I may not be able to sire children. After we were engaged, we began a five-year plan that would end with the first of five adoptions. (Yes, we were crazy and wanted five children: boy, girl, boy, girl, boy. Oy!) About six months after we were married, Amy was told she “would never be able to bear children”. We threw caution to the wind. I was told “may never” while Amy was told “never”. Her news was more definitive. She stopped taking the birth control pills and we began looking for an adoption agency just to figure out what hoops we’d have to jump through and just how much each hoop would deduct from our bank account.

God had a different plan. Fast forward five and a half years, add the mathematical rule “two negatives make a positive” and multiply by three. In the beginning, I was not a very good dad. I struggled to understand my role and to become the Daddy my children thought I was, or rather, the Daddy they deserved. With each of my three boys, there was a moment in time God froze for me. I can still close my eyes and relive each of those three moments. The house, furniture, and surroundings were not the same, but the three events were nearly identical. In each one, I was sitting in a recliner with one of my three toddlers curled up in my lap. Guess what I was doing. The realization at the time etched the moment into my memory. I can smell dinner during the first encounter. I can hear the blips and squeaks of the hospital monitors during the second encounter. I can see my beautiful wife watching me during the third. What was I doing? I was playing with my boys’ curls and talking with them about why their little heart hurt.

Sometime later, Amy and I were in a Christian bookstore, and I stumbled upon a picture by an unknown artist, simply titled “Destiny”. I stood stone still staring at that picture for an unknown length of time. My collar was wet from the tears when Amy found me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even speak. God gave her a revelation of her own. I had never even imagined Jesus as a toddler, let alone a nearly red-headed toddler with curls. The toddler in the picture looked almost like my youngest; it was overwhelming. Amy pointed out the shadow behind the toddler; that was the moment when God brought it all to a point. The concert. The desire to be a daddy. The three moments, one with each of my three boys. I was wrestling with it all while looking at one of my now heroes – Joseph of Nazareth – as he lived life with his “son” at his feet. We bought the picture and have had it in our home since. Today, the juxtaposition of the toddler Jesus playing with a spike while the cross looms in the foreground has me choking on yet another difficulty related to being a daddy: the world is big and scary and my children will get hurt – it’s my job to be the daddy they need when they are hurt.

In this season of life, as a widowed father of three teenage boys, I find myself struggling as a dad. My soul aches to crawl up into Abba God’s lap and bear my soul while He plays with…what’s left of my hair. And in the middle of the heart-pounding desire is another desire, to be a better daddy today than I was yesterday.

…to be continued in pt. 2…