when your dad isn't who you need him to be (and feature posts from this week's link-up)

i'm trying not to listen but joey's talking to his dad on the phone.

and it's been a week of anger. "my heart is bleeding," he tells me one night. and the next morning, after he makes another boy cry i pull the door closed and pull him close and ask him what's wrong.

"i'm mad at my daddy," joey says, and that was that. this wounded child.

i try to make room for grace, try to build it a cozy nest, but it's hard to forgive a man who's forced a boy into anger.

"why does he always have to leave? when will he just stay forever?" he says.



i hug him so tight both of us stop breathing and it's in this shared space of sorrow that God enters. i have no words only arms but i'll offer them a thousand times a day just to let you know you're loved, i want to say.

he's on the phone with his daddy now, and it would seem his daddy wants to hang up. "why do you always have to let me go?" joey says.

it's a four-year-old's way of interpreting a parent's goodbye.

and afterwards we sit on his bed, me tucking him in and it's time to say prayers. and he says he doesn't want to pray because he's angry. i tell him it's okay to be angry, God can handle angry, and even though he's angry, God will never let him go.

then he bows, asks God to bless his daddy.

and i don't know that i've ever met a truer Christian.


~feature posts from this week's link-up~

beautiful free bird

reality show faith-unmasked

how stories connect us

there you are--i see you

this difficult friendship

i am She