What better way to start off this blog series than with the most influential man in my life, Mark Cox. And on the most appropriate day of the year: Father's Day.
Who is this man? To most he's a pastor, a preacher, and a teacher. To some he's a friend. To a few he's a son, a brother, and a grandfather. But to me he's a father. A good father. Me and my dad are extremely similar. Growing up I always hated when people would tell me I looked like him. Both of my sisters look like twins and they are mini-me's of my mother. I got my dad's genes. I always wished I fit in with the girls in the family but I fit in better with the boys. I don't mind it much now, but I hated it growing up. A few things we have in common are our sense of humor, our competitive nature, our tendency to analyze everything, our love for reading, and our passion for learning. Some of the best times I can remember with my dad growing up have been the intense theological conversations that have gone on for hours and hours. I love asking him questions and dissecting and analyzing and mulling things over with him. The passion that I've grown to have for spiritual things and yearning after the Lord I know I owe to him. He has a strong heart and a stable mind. His marriage to my mother has been an irreplaceable foundational security and stability in my life. I long to marry a man with a heart like my father's.
I have found that the majority of girls I have come to know in my twenty-three years have mentioned that they have always been closer, or at least gotten along better with their dad than their mom. Oftentimes the dad is the softy and the mom is the strict disciplinarian, causing the girls to butt heads with their moms and run to Daddy for comfort. However, this has never been the case in my house. The disciplinarian is my father. If we ever really wanted something you never ask Daddy first, you ask Momma. Because then when you get the "I don't care if Daddy doesn't care" it was extra ammo when presenting the weapon of argument to Daddy... "Oh and Momma said she didn't care if you don't!" ...not sure if it ever actually worked but I liked to think it did.
As a Christian and a psych major, I've grown up knowing that the most important figure in a child's life, boy or girl, is their father. I've always found that interesting. The mother carries the child, births the child, and typically does most of the caretaking with the children, but somehow the father's role is the most crucial.
I'm not going to lie and act like my dad and I have always had the greatest relationship, because in all honesty.... it's been really hard. Between the ages of 14 and 20 I would have told you ingesting kitty litter would have been more preferable to having important conversations with my dad (and my mom), and now looking back, I have to say I'm surprised they put up with as much as they did from me. To put it plainly, my teenage years sucked. Big time. For me and for my parents who had to deal with me. There have been many choices I've made in my life that have only constructed wall after wall after wall between me and my parents, but always most especially my father. The man who has loved me so unconditionally and has never withheld his love for a moment was continually pushed away by me. The further I dug myself in holes I was in the more isolated I became and the harder it was to receive any kind of love, particularly the love of a father. The past three years I have been trying to undo the damage I caused over a six to seven year period and I find it still to be a challenge to this day. Why? When so many of my friends are without fathers or with lousy fathers who don't take their role seriously, why would I ever push away one of the greatest father figures this world could contain?
I can't speak for anyone else, I only know my own life and that much I sometimes don't even know. But in my experience, when you have continued to mess up and continued to fall on your face over and over again, it becomes extremely hard to accept and believe that you are lovable. It is something I've had to choose to believe every day and allow the Lord to begin mending and healing in my heart so that I may choose to accept and not to reject goodness. If God, who is my heavenly Father, would choose to love me and to die for me in my sin, why would my own earthly father not also choose to love me and accept me in my sin? This is a lesson I have had to learn. I haven't known many people with my story and with the same familial issues I've had in this area. But this is the essence of my story. It hasn't always been pretty, in fact it's been outright ugly at times. But the love has outweighed the hate, and the light has overcome the dark. And I owe where I am today to a man who decided he would never give up on his daughter.
Happy Father's Day, Daddy. I wish the world could know a love like yours. Thank you. Thank you for representing Christ to me. I love you, because you first loved me.
