Losing my father was devastating.
It was destination-changing.
It was foundation-rattling.
It was heart-altering.
Yet this profound sense of loss (which is as raw and fresh as in the first few months), has also brought with it a deep and sure gratitude; a great thankfulness for my father’s shadow.
As a pastor, I’ve always told the dads around me that their influence in their children’s lives is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. I thought I knew it to be true before my father was gone, but in all honesty I really had no idea.
It’s only been in these recent days, with each passing second, each surprise memory, with every silly little story that surrounds me as I move through the ordinary days, that I realize just how vast and rich the spectre of his life is over my own.
But I know that to most of you guys reading this, my father was just a normal guy, a man you never met or heard of; one who lived and worked and married and had kids and did what he did and died.
And so my father’s shadow—the one he cast over me and my siblings, probably doesn’t interest you much.
But I hope yours does.
Dads, make no mistake: you are casting a shadow too, right now.
As powerful and pervasive as my father’s life was to me, yours is to those in your care. Right now, you are speaking words and making decisions and creating memories and sending messages that are irrevocably and permanently shaping your children’s lives. This very day you are assembling their history and your legacy.
We are all shadow-makers, looming massively in our families and homes, like towering redwoods whose tops can’t be seen from the ground.
But the funny thing about the shadows that we cast over our kids, is the way that the darkness can feel to them.
To some children, the shadow of a dad will feel like shade in the scorching mid-day, summer sun. It will bring rest and peace and shelter. It will feel like protection and provision and acceptance. It will be the cool, safe place they never want to leave, and after we’re gone it will be the steady, strong comfort that sustains them in the despair of our absence.
But for some children, that shadow will be cold and bleak and terrifying. It will feel like disapproval and rejection and not-good-enough. It will be the nightmare that they can’t wake-up from, even as adults—the one that continually obscures the sunlight from their hearts. It will be made up of missed opportunities and broken promises and selfish choices. Some shadows are dark places to run from.
What kind of shadow are you casting?
Dads, you may think I’m being overly dramatic here, and yes maybe your children won’t land in either of those two extremes but don’t think for a minute that they won’t land somewhere; that they aren’t being internally renovated by every small and large thing that you do, and that your life in these moments doesn’t count.
Know without a doubt, that your children will spend their adult lives largely within the silhouette that you’ve crafted. You get to control to a great degree, just how you want them to feel as they do.
Ultimately Dads, it comes down to time; to right now, to presence, to showing-up, and giving it your best. It’s about getting it right or getting it wrong and trying again, and about doing the difficult, tedious, exhausting work of loving and forgiving and apologizing and correcting and dancing and sacrificing and laughing and leading.
These days, even as I grieve my father’s loss I get the priceless joy of living in the safe, sweet shadow of his life—and I’m doing all I can do to give that gift to my children.
Dads, your lives are more massive than you can ever imagine.
Watch where you walk.
Choose your moves carefully.
Make every second matter.
Steward your shadows.
