Father’s Day — an odd perspective

I’ve always been a bit “ba humbug” about holidays. In my mind, at the end, it’s just another day. Birthdays, holidays off work, vacations, they all come and go and life goes on. In trying to psychoanalyze myself, I’ve determined it all comes down to expectations. No one day or span of days can ever live up to the expectations I can establish in my head, so I learned long ago to just kill my expectations. Don’t get me wrong, people who love me do their best to make holidays/vacations/special occasions great. But life always manages to sneak in and throw some curveballs, sliders, and breaking balls that are rather annoying to deal with. There are a few different applications in this for me. First, Father’s day (which was just “celebrated” yesterday) is no exception to my ba humbug mentality. Second, there is one day where I can, indeed, hype up my expectations.

First, for example, Father’s day this year. “Today’s the day you can do whatever you want” reads the text I received from a friend yesterday morning as I sat pondering the day ahead. That is the sentiment towards Father’s day for many, but that is not the way it tends to go for me. Yesterday was busy with church, serving our international refugee friends after the service, managing high anxiety and fending off panic attacks with my wife, and working almost all afternoon to get our very constipated medically complex daughter to have a bowel movement (yes, if you are wondering, we were successful in our efforts. she hadn’t pooped in 8 days and it was becoming an issue). I don’t mean for this paragraph to be a pity party or call for sympathy, I’m simply laying out the course of my day. It ended after dinner with the in-laws with my wife and I tired to the point of eating a few bites of ice cream and going to bed without anytime for ourselves or our marriage. Just another day in the life of a special needs parent. No frills, nothing special, nothing exciting.

This is our track record with holidays. For mother’s day, try as we might to make the day special for mom, this year our adopted son was wrestling with the fact that we aren’t his only family and when we celebrate “Mommy’s Day” he has another mommy out there…uncelebrated without him there. He’s 4, by the way. Big questions and feelings for a young mind that ended in him telling my wife that he didn’t want to be a part of our family and wished he could be with his other mommy for Mommy’s Day. Happy Mother’s day. Just another day, no frills, nothing special, nothing exciting.

I feel like this is how it goes, is it not? Birthdays don’t mean what they did when you were a kid. You clock in and clock out at work like everyone else. It simply means you’re one day or year closer to financial crises, kids growing up and leaving, health crises and, ultimately, death. Holidays can never bear the weight of expectations that we heap on them. We expect them to be restful enough to fix all our weariness, exciting enough to cover all our sorrow, and relationally healing enough to mend a plethora of tensions or conflict. Some will read this and call me a cynic. Others may read this and sympathize with my outlook, which I’ve determined to be simply realistic.

So what do I do with this? I must look towards some future event which can bear the weight of my expectations. There simply has to be an event that will meet my needs. There must be a holiday which will provide rest, joy, peace, and relational healing. If not, what is this all for? If not, I have no reason to carry on.

Indeed, I am pointed toward that coming day when Heaven will follow through on all that is promised of it. That day when we stand before God and he wipes away every tear from our eyes. When there will be no more mourning, or crying, or pain. When Cerebral Palsy will be no more. When the foster system will be no more. When He makes all things new. When we become like Him because we see Him as He is. That will be a spectacular day. And let me tell you, I’ve got some big expectations for that day. My daughter will be given a new body. She will no longer deal with the discomfort of her body not working as it should. Her muscles will relax and contract exactly as they’re intended. She will be able to see, she will be able to speak. The first thing she will see will be the light of the glory of her Savior and the first thing she will say will be praises to Jesus. My son, too, if he trusts in Jesus, will be given a new body. He will no longer deal with the trauma of being separated from parents at birth. He will no longer question a mother and father’s love for Him as He rests in the perfect love of His heavenly Father for him. I long for this day when, Lord willing, I can stand before my God and hear “well done, my good and faithful servant". And the weight of my expectations will fall so far short of reality that my present mind cannot comprehend.

But until that day, we wait. We expect. We get let down. We press on through the “holidays". And life carries on. Come, Lord Jesus.