fathers Archives - Held By His Pierced Hands

Guest Post: Finding Healing in the Father’s Love

Friends, I want to share with you a testimony from a dear friend. The first time she shared this story with me, I was so overwhelmed by how gentle and generous our God is. I invite you to listen to her experience of suffering and pride and healing and wholeness and to offer the Father your own brokenness, asking him to enter in and heal you, too. (cw: sexual abuse)

On March 12, 2017 God spontaneously healed my back from over a decade of chronic pain in one miraculous instant. But that’s nothing compared to the way He healed my broken and untrusting heart. See, when I was 11, I was sexually abused by my dad. The one who was supposed to be my rock, my protector, my refuge, had violated me in the most painful and humiliating way. It wrecked me. I bled and crawled and willed myself through the next several years.

Then when I was 19 I was diagnosed with a chronic back condition. The doctors said they would try to manage the pain, but this would be for life. I went through every treatment option available, even surgery, without lasting relief. I dropped out of college and struggled to work. I finally found a treatment system that kept the pain manageable but I always felt limited. Being physically “broken” became part of my identity.

When I was 27 years old, I met Jesus for the first time and fell madly in love. Then, after 3 years of pursuing God, I got a promise for healing. I was sitting in bed reading my Bible like any other day when I came to this verse:

The council then threatened them further, but they finally let them go because they didn’t know how to punish them without starting a riot. For everyone was praising God for this miraculous sign – the healing of a man who had been lame for more than 40 years. (Acts 4:21-22)

The tears streamed down my face. In my spirit, I heard clear as can be, “This is for you! You have been praying for your back in doubt and unbelief. Start praying in faith and expectation, because your day is coming!”

I was overwhelmed and overjoyed. Over the next month or so I tried to be patient and obedient. The Lord had told me to pray for healing in faith, so I tried. Honestly, I was a little disappointed every time the pain hit. Even so, I clung to my promise. I convinced myself that if I just had more faith, I could somehow make the miracle happen. That I could “earn” it. Every day without healing was a day I felt like I had failed to pray or believe the way God wanted me to.

I was invited on a retreat with my church a couple of months later. Sitting alone, looking out over the mountain, I felt like I could hear from the Lord so clearly. Jesus whispered a question to my heart: did I really believe He would deliver on His Word to me? And although I knew there was doubt in my heart, I shoved it down and proclaimed “YES, LORD! I BELIEVE YOU!” He asked if I believed that He was really able to heal me right where I was sitting. Again, my cynical brain wanted to say, “Who am I to deserve such a miracle?” but I shoved it down and declared “YES! YES, I BELIEVE YOU CAN DO IT, JESUS!” And in a moment that in hindsight I can only call ridiculous, I shouted out to God and the mountainside that I would be healed where I sat, that I would get up from that chair with no pain and it was done, in the Name of Jesus! I stood up, gritting my teeth, “I believe you; I believe you; I believe you!”

And you know what? The pain was gone. I could hardly believe it; my healing had come! But I was terrified. What if the pain comes back? What if I am deluding myself right now? I buried my doubts yet again and waltzed back into the cabin.

For 3 blissful days I was pain-free, but I lived in such fear of losing my precious miracle. And then my nightmare came to pass: the pain returned. I lied to myself for a few days, telling myself this was all in my head, that my healing had been real. I refused to voice any of my doubts, even to God. I was so ashamed. With the familiar pain haunting my days, I finally got low enough to let go. I spilled my guts to Jesus, allowing myself to be naked before Him for the first time. After weeks of crying out in truth, I opened myself up enough to hear Him respond.

He told me he had given me a few days of healing because He wanted to show me that He was able to do what He promised. He told me to go back through my Bible and see that God Himself is the one who authors and perfects our faith. He told me that He was faithful even when I was faithless, and that His promise was unfailing. And I realized that God could handle my mess, that He could handle my unbelief. So I started praying for healing again, and for the faith to receive it.

Soon after, the topic of surrender came up in my Bible study. I was shocked to realize that I had surrendered my spirit and my heart to God, but not my body. When God rocked my world with this revelation, I realized it was because of the abuse so many years before.

After my abuse, I had vowed to myself that from that day forward I would be the master of my own body. I would decide what happened and what didn’t happen to it. Every vow I made was a violent reaction to having been so brutally stripped of my will by my own father. Although I had forgiven him early on in my walk with Christ, I was still carrying the wound in my body. Faced with this truth, I repented. I made a conscious decision to surrender my body to the Lord.

And then on March 12, sitting in a church service God told me one more thing. He told me that my healing was pure grace. It was a lavish gift from my Heavenly Father and it had nothing to do with how worthy I felt I was to receive it. My Savior took me by the hand and said, “Honey, this is all I‘m asking of you: if you have enough faith to walk down to the prayer line and tell them what I promised you, today is your day.”

So I did. Then a woman placed her hand on my back and we began to pray together. Slowly, that glorious weight of the Holy Spirit filled the space around us. It was as if every fiber of my body was being held by the Holy Spirit. I was being given a physical experience of the beautiful truth in Colossians 1:17 that in Jesus all things hold together. Heat radiated from her hand through my back, and we were crying and worshiping and hugging each other. I was almost dancing, my hands lifted in praise, as I laughed with pure joy. This time I knew God had fulfilled His word to me. This time I wasn’t scared because I knew I hadn’t done anything to earn the healing and I couldn’t do anything to lose it. Because it wasn’t about me.

And it wasn’t about my back. Two weeks later God gave me the real healing. I was in prayer, marveling at my blessing and praising God. I wondered to Him why He had chosen to take away my pain, knowing so many pray for healing and never get it in this life. He answered, speaking right to my heart.

Your earthly father did something painful and ugly to your body without your permission, but I waited until you gave Me permission to do something good and beautiful.

He waited until I could feel safe, completely helpless and vulnerable before Him, before he healed me. He didn’t force anything. He loved me and honored me. And that’s how He healed me, and showed me what it means that He is my true Father.

My true Father in Heaven is nothing like my earthly father. He is faithful, He is good, He is Love. He is indeed my rock, my protector, and my refuge. And He can do beautiful things with broken people, if only they are willing.

My back doesn’t hurt. It never has since, not beyond the normal aches of pregnancy and aging. And my heart isn’t bitter. Loving my father can still be hard and forgiveness is something I have to renew again and again as we work at rebuilding our relationship. (Honestly, the fact that I even want a relationship with him is purely miraculous.) But loving my Father–and being loved by Him–isn’t scary anymore. And that healing has changed everything.

A Daddy’s Love

By most measures, my father was a failure. He married far too young and had too many children. He never made enough money to support his family. For much of his life, he didn’t work at all. He collected diseases and disorders (real and imagined) in almost as great numbers as his ubiquitous action figures. And then, without fanfare, he up and died. At 55. Not much to write home about.

With his firstborn--clearly the most perfect baby the world had ever seen. — With my brother, his firstborn. He wrote us in an email once, “I was unprepared for how very much I love you.”

But, oh, my Daddy loved me. He loved me and my mother and my siblings so well and so hard that in so many ways his love almost defines us. He didn’t just tell us we were wonderful–he honestly believed, with everything he was, that we were the five most incredible people ever to walk the face of the planet. He bought my mother skimpy outfits in the hopes she’d wear them around town because he knew she was super hot and–apparently–wanted everyone else to know, too. He told my awkward preteen older brother that every girl he ever saw had the hots for him. He wrote me email after email just telling me (for no particular reason) that he loved me and was so proud of me. He thought my sister was the most talented singer, the most talented soccer player, the most amusing young woman there had ever been–with the exception of me and my mother, with whom she was tied. And just try to convince him that my little brother wasn’t the best-looking kid at his confirmation (to which he wore my father’s brown tweed bell-bottom wedding suit). He would have none of it.

He saw what was good in us and, whatever his flaws, he loved us so desperately that we began to believe him. Any time I talk to women about beauty, I tell them how deeply my father loved me. Any time I talk to men about being protectors, I tell them to be like my daddy. Because even at my worst, even when I was absolutely convinced that I was fat and ugly and completely unlovable, I knew that my daddy loved me. And I knew that if he loved me, maybe somebody else could. Even when everything in me and everything around me was telling me that I was worthless, I couldn’t quite believe it. My daddy, after all, was completely enamored of me. Here’s part of a poem he wrote me for my 24th birthday:

you have always
made
the sun
seem boring
floating about

in the radiant
beauty
that is you

It took years for me to begin to believe that maybe he was right–that maybe there was something special about me. It took Christ, really. But when I began to read how deeply Christ loved me, I accepted it, because I’d felt that love before. When I fell at my knees at the foot of the cross, confessing my sins against one who’d loved me so deeply, his forgiveness felt familiar. My daddy forgave me the same way–completely and gladly, as though my sin had been entirely washed away.

He must have been remarkable if I was prompted (out of nowhere) to send him this a few years back.

When I heard about a Father who loved me, I accepted it without question. Of course my Father loved me–that’s what fathers do. It was years before I realized what a gift that was, years before I understood that so many people struggle their whole lives to accept the love of the Father because of the wounds they hold from their earthly fathers. My father wasn’t perfect, but he never failed in the one thing that mattered most: love.

A family picture with all of us...up till now, anyway. You can see from his expression that he wasn't well. — A family picture with all of us…up till now, anyway. You can see from his face that he wasn’t well.

Eighteen years ago, my father got sick. Mentally, emotionally, physically. He withdrew from almost everything. He stopped doing anything around the house. He stopped even leaving the house. He missed almost every concert and play I had in high school. He made life really hard for us and I was so angry at him. But even then, even when he couldn’t always act like he loved me, I never once questioned his love. Because it was so obvious in everything he did. Because the only thing that pulled him out of himself was us. Because when I search for “Figglety” (his inscrutable nickname for me) in my email, I find dozens of random emails in which he just tells me–unprompted by any discernible cause–that he loves me and is proud of me. Whatever his flaws, he loved me.

My daddy taught me that I was worthy of love. He taught me how to accept love. And he gave me a model of how to love. If I love one person half as well as he loved us, I’ll count it a life well lived.

What kind of man inspires a look like that on the face of his wife of 26 (now 24) years? The last thing my mother said about my father on Facebook: "You think your daddy and I are boring. You are completely uninspired by our proposal that wasn't, not really. You used to think we were dumb because "our song" is Mozart's 41st. But how can a man be boring when he promises his life to you? No, Jonathan, you're never boring—except when you are, and we're both happy about that!" — What kind of man inspires a look like that on the face of his wife of 26 (now 34) years?

The last thing my mother said about my father on Facebook was this: “You [kids] think your daddy and I are boring. You are completely uninspired by our proposal that wasn’t, not really. You used to think we were dumb because “our song” is Mozart’s 41st. But how can a man be boring when he promises his life to you? No, Jonathan, you’re never boring—except when you are, and we’re both happy about that!” After 34 years of marriage–a hard marriage that many would have said she had every right to get out of–he was still completely hers, as madly in love with her as on the day they married.

I haven't mentioned how silly he was. I'm sure this ridiculous picture was his idea. — I haven’t mentioned how silly he was. I’m sure this ridiculous picture was his idea.

He was a difficult man to live with but until the day I die I will be grateful for the daddy he was. By many accounts, he was a failure. But if we forget the “accomplishments” of his life and look at the meaning of his life–a wife and four children who walked every day of their lives in the knowledge that they were deeply and unconditionally loved–it’s hard not to stand in wonder at a broken man who never wanted to be anything more than Daddy.

Of course, I’m a little heartbroken. Death hurts. But it hurts because it’s wrong, not because it’s bad. We weren’t made to die. We weren’t made to be separated. And I miss my Daddy. But I’d been missing him, in a sense, for 18 years. And now–finally–he’s the man he used to be again, free from everything that hurt and twisted him. He’s whole and healed and joyful. And really, I’m just so thankful for God’s timing in this. He’d just recently returned to the Sacraments and I keep finding myself on my knees before the Blessed Sacrament saying over and over again, “I’m so grateful, I’m so grateful.” I’m so, so thankful that he went now and not six months ago. To die in a state of grace: what more could you ask?

Timmy had just thrown a ball which bounced off my mother's head and into our dog's mouth. It was epic. — Timmy had just thrown a ball which bounced off my mother’s head and into our dog’s mouth. It was epic. Notice how we’re all looking at the camera. My daddy is looking at us.

My father loved the Lord so much. He was hungry for heaven and had been for years. He was living a Sacramental life–and oh, thank God for that–and I’m not afraid for him. Really, I’m so glad for him. He had been in so much pain for so long and now he’s free and home or heading there. The last email I sent him was terse and rather patronizing and I tried to feel guilty about it but then I remembered–in the communion of saints, we are still together. So I told him I was sorry and reminded him how much I love him and he heard and now all that’s left is joy in who he was and joy in who he’s becoming and hope for when we meet again.

Daddy Mary Claire — Grandaddy with his youngest grandbaby. He’s absolutely captivated by her. She’s absolutely captivated by his beard.

Would y’all take a minute to pray for my father (Jonathan Hunter-Kilmer) and for my family? If you want to get to know him a little better, my sister wrote a beautiful tribute here and his sister (one of many) tells some great stories about his childhood here. The funeral will be Saturday, December 7, at 2pm at St. Mark Catholic Church in Vienna, VA.

O Lord, support us all the day long of this troublous life,
until the shadows lengthen,
and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed,
the fever of life is over,
and our work done.
Then, Lord, in your mercy,
grant us safe lodging,
a holy rest,
and peace at the last;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
-Bl. John Henry Newman

5 Rules for Fathers of Daughters

I mentioned before that I was a teenager in the 90s. This was a bad thing even for those with an innate fashion sense and wads of cash.

90210 never forget — Oh, how I wish I could forget….

For those of us who were nerdy, broke posers, it was catastrophic. I distinctly remember buying a worn-out pair of Umbros at a thrift store because Maia Matthews wore Umbros and she was awesome. I had pink flannels from Caldor and chunky heels from Payless. And I’m pretty sure I wore them all together.

I think my best outfit of that cringe-worthy era was a fabulous combination of oversized men’s jeans with a cropped tank top. Oh, and because showing your boxers was cool for boys, I bought plaid underwear to sag my jeans over. Pretty much, I was awesome.

Kelly Bundy crop top baggy jeans — I think I was going for something like this. Yes, always take advice from “Married with Children.”

So that my 13-year-old pudge could be admired by as many people as possible, I would get all dolled up in this outfit and ride my bike around the neighborhood. It was a disaster.

And my father thought I looked beautiful.

Okay, objectively he was wrong (and probably ought to have told me to put on more clothes). But my daddy always thought I was beautiful. Until I moved out of the house, I modeled every new outfit for him. And every time, no matter how ridiculous the ensemble was (why did I WEAR terrycloth?), his jaw dropped and he said, “WOW!”

Now, I’ve had my share of body image issues. Like every teenage girl I’ve ever met, at some level I hated myself. But let me tell you: at the deepest level, I knew I deserved to be loved. Because my daddy loved me so well.

Gentlemen, you are hands down the most important person in your daughter’s life. Forget moms (sorry moms–you matter, too), friends, boyfriends, teachers. Aside from God, there is no more important relationship. I mean, no pressure, but so much of the woman she becomes comes down to the way you treat your little girl. So in honor of my daddy and fathers everywhere, I want to give you my top five rules for dads based on years of working with teenage girls and even adult women who are, largely, as broken as their relationships with their fathers set them up to be.

1. Love her. I know this is obvious. Hopefully it goes without saying. But guys, you’ve gotta love that little girl like your life depends on it. Because hers does.

I sure hope you’re captivated by her. I hope you think she’s beautiful and smart and clever and worth cherishing. But if you don’t, learn to. Love isn’t a feeling, it’s a choice. If you don’t think your little girl (whether she’s still in the womb or 60 years old) is incredible in every way, figure out how to. Make a list of everything you love about her. Sit down with an album of pictures of her and marvel at how she’s grown. Write down all your favorite memories. Pray for her, Every day, without fail. You can’t always be who she needs you to be, but you can always pray.

If your daughter is older and has hurt you, I’m sorry. But I’m going to need you to be the grown up here and learn to forgive. It’s hard to love a sullen teenager. Believe me, I know. That’s what I do for a living. But this isn’t just feelings–this is a lifelong battle for the everlasting joy of the little girl you created. You do what it takes to love that girl. Because if you don’t, she’ll find someone else to. And unless you’ve set a high standard, whatever man she finds to to love her like you were supposed to is just going to crush her spirit more.

2. Tell her you love her. I don’t care if you think she already knows. Tell her. Tell her every day. Really, a woman can’t hear it enough. My mom says she wanted to tell her kids she loved them so often that it was commonplace. “Sure, Mama, whatever. Can I have 10 bucks?” And there were times when I found it annoying as a child. But when I didn’t have a date to homecoming, I knew somebody loved me. When I put on the freshman 15, I knew somebody thought I was beautiful. And as much as I love my mom, it wasn’t her affirmation that I remembered. A woman needs that affirmation from a man. Blame the Fall if you want, but the fact remains that a man’s words mean much more to a woman than another woman’s words do. If you don’t give your daughter this love, she’ll do whatever it takes to get it from some other man.

So tell her you love her. But tell her in a thousand different ways. Tell her she’s beautiful. You don’t have to go all awkward goo-goo eyes on her (and please don’t ever, ever use the words hot or sexy to talk about your daughter), but tell her she looks nice in that sweater. Tell her she has a sick jump shot. Tell her you love her drawing or her dimples or her poetry or whatever. Don’t limit your affirmation to her appearance–girls need to be more than pretty–but compliment her appearance. Most men don’t need to hear that; most women do. Don’t just compliment her on things she’s accomplished, either. She needs to know that your love doesn’t depend on her corner kicks. Do NOT call her names–even behind her back. You say positive things or you say constructive things. Then tell her you love her again.

Buy her flowers. Write her a letter. Write her a poem if you can. I roll my eyes every time my dad writes me a poem (I told you he was amazing) but I keep them because they tell me what I’m worth. Sometimes, just look into her eyes and tell her she’s everything you ever wanted in a daughter. When she’s little, she’ll just run off to play. When she’s a teenager, she’ll probably roll her eyes. But those words will change her life. She needs to know that you love her always and forever, no matter what. She needs to hear you say it.

3. Show her you love her. It doesn’t matter what you say to your little girl if you don’t put your money where your mouth is. So hold her while she’s little. I don’t care if you don’t like to cuddle. If she likes to cuddle, you cuddle that child. Carry her when she asks.

Father wearing baby — Pack her up and take her with you if you have to.

Show up to everything. Every game, every recital, every awards assembly. No meeting is as important as her debut in the school play. Cancel whatever you have to cancel–your vocation is not to make money. Your vocation is to love your daughter. Nothing is more important than being there for her. You never know how long you’ll have with her. No regrets.

And while you’re at it, don’t just show up–do something! Take her on a daddy-daughter date. Go to a zoo or a museum or just the playground–just you and her. When she gets older, take her on her first “real” date–show her how a date ought to treat her. When she moves out, call her just to talk. Chicks love that. Show up to help her move. Treat her like a lady–holding doors and carrying things–so she knows that’s how a gentleman behaves. Convince her not to waste her time with worthless men. Listen when she complains and don’t try to fix it for her. Most women just want to be heard, not to be solved. She’s a person, not a puzzle.

Father Daughter Ballerina — Take the freaking ballet class with her if that’s what it takes!

Hold her when she cries. Hug her often. Kiss her on the top of her head. Buy her presents that mean something. Do NOT try to buy her love. Change her tire or teach her to change her oil or let her give you a makeover or play ball with her in the driveway or take her fishing or read books together or take her to see the Rolling Stones (how are those guys not dead yet?) and then go with her to see Taylor Swift. There will be moments in there that are boring or awkward or awful but what she will remember is that you loved her that much. Get to know your little girl and love her the way she needs to be loved. She deserves nothing less.

4. Love her mother. John Wooden is famous for saying, “The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” The relationship you have with your daughter’s mother sets the standard for every relationship she will ever have with a man. She needs to know that a woman deserves to be cherished and protected and adored. So if you yell at your wife or roll your eyes or demean her, stop. Right now. Maybe yelling has to happen sometimes, but not in front of your kids. You need to treat your wife the way you want your daughter to be treated. If you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry a man like you, be a better man.

Showing her how a woman ought to be treated also includes romance. Take your wife on dates. Kiss her often–in front of the kids. Don’t be gross, but let them see that love can stay alive in a marriage. A friend told me recently that her 2-year-old niece saw a picture of two people gazing at each other and said, “Dada and Mama!” The picture looked nothing like the girl’s parents, but when she saw love, she thought of her parents. Your daughter deserves to see marriage as beautiful and romantic. And she needs to see that the place for romance is in marriage. Make her believe that her knight in shining armor won’t just slay the dragon and ride off into the sunset, he’ll kiss the princess awake every morning afterwards. She deserves to believe in fairy tale love. Your wife deserves it, too.

I know this is a complicated world and maybe you’re not married to your daughter’s mother. You can still treat her kindly and talk about her respectfully. If you don’t have custody, you fight for all the time you can possible get with your baby. If there’s a stepmom, treat her like a queen. If your daughter’s mom has passed away, you can tell wonderful stories and explain how much you loved her mom. She identifies with her mom, whether they have a good relationship or not. She needs to know that you’re not going to stop loving her if something terrible happens. The mother of your children deserves to be respected in front of them even if that respect doesn’t go much further. Do it for your kids.

5. Love all women. Treat every woman with dignity. Every one. The cashier, the obnoxious little girl on the playground, the politician on screen. You’ve got to be consistent in the respect you show for women. This means especially that you run from anything impure. If you’ve got a problem with pornography, get help now. Even if she never finds out (and she will), porn makes you look at women differently and she’ll start thinking men ought to see women as objects. No porn. Change the channel when something inappropriate comes on TV. Talk about the positive things you see in women–and mention their beauty even if they’re heavy. If you only think skinny girls are pretty, your daughter will think she’s fat and ugly even if she’s a size two.

true gentleman — Basically, I’m saying be this guy to everyone.

Open doors for all women, not just pretty ones or old ones. Step up and be a servant. Look at women like they’re human beings–you’d be surprised how many “decent guys” can’t even look kindly at a stranger. If you can look at every woman the way you look at your little girl, she’ll know what a real man is and you’ll be a saint.

This is a lot to ask. I know it is. But not only do you set the standard for her relationships with men, you set the standard for fatherhood. Christians have been taught to call God Father; I’ve met too many women who can’t love God because they’ve been so hurt by their fathers. Don’t do that to her.

This daddy thing isn’t something you can compromise on. It will take the rest of your life to become the kind of dad your daughter needs. It’ll take a lot out of you. But don’t you think she deserves it?

P.S. Happy Father’s Day–I love you, Daddy!

P.P.S. This list gives some great thoughts. This article, too.