He Had a Choice…

…they both did.

With Father’s Day recently occurring and likely lingering in our minds, I felt like it was the appropriate perfect time to share something that has been on my heart for years now. CHOICES.

Daily we face so many choices. What to wear? What to eat? Which time? What place? Where? Why? How? This list goes on and on. We seldom place any real thought to these choices, simply weighing our options or making a snap decision in a split second. And where little time is spent contemplating such choices, we even more rarely think of the consequences – whether long or short term – for said choices. Mainly because they seem so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I mean, what does it really matter if I wear the green shoes instead of the black ones? What difference is it really going to make if I get sweet tea instead of water? But all too often we also fail to see how our choices end up affecting those around us because we spend so much time time making decisions, that in all honesty, really only matter to us.

When I was twelve years old, my mother got a phone call that not only changed her life, but ours as well. Forever. In May of my 6th grade year my father was out of town yet again for business. An occurrence we were all to familiar with as he frequently traveled both here and abroad with his job. We hadn’t heard from him much in a few days so we were anxious with the call as is. My brother and I immediately knew something was terribly wrong when my mom slowly set the phone down, tears slowly falling from her face. The voice on the other end of the line had delivered a message we never wanted to hear. In an instant, my father was gone from our lives… and it was by his own choosing.

You see, my father was not involved in some fatal accident. He did not loose a constant battle with cancer, addiction, or disease. He did not relieve himself of this world to spare himself the pain of illness or depression. He simply walked away. Because he felt like it. Fifteen years ago, my father chose weakness and left my mother for another woman he had been having an affair with, not thinking of how this choice would effect more than just their marriage, but the very lives of his children, not only in that moment, but for the years to come.

At twelve years old, I knew a great many things in my absorbent little mind. Yet, so many experiences were beyond my youthful stage and limited capacities of knowledge at that point. I was sheltered and naive to my parents relationship, not knowing the struggles they may have been dealing with. Not understanding the “worse” that always accompanies the “better” in such a union. That was not my place. I was not so ignorant to think however that arguments would not arise, or that disagreements would never occur. And I kew that marriage was not just some fairytale complete with a lifetime of perfection. But that it involved work. Anyone who had lived in three states at that point and left old friendships and attempted to cultivate new ones was very aware of the effort it took to maintain relationships of any kind; especially marriage. As a dear friend has recently shared, marriage is a commitment and a covenant, not a contract. More than any other relationship, it is not something to be tossed easily aside just because something different came along. And in that moment, I knew that my father had decided to throw that all away and simply give up. He chose to leave.

As the years went by many consequences fell on not only my mother, but also to my brother and I. Of course there were the outward lifestyle changes that were visible to the world. Moving, working, and the rest. But there were also  several other ‘consequences’ that came from my father’s choice that never once entered his mind when he made that phone call so many years ago. When I was 22, with the guidance of my now husband, and in his complete encouragement and love, I had the opportunity to share those consequences with my father face to face after almost ten years of my written words falling to untuned ears. After nearly ten years of self doubt, extreme lack of confidence, difficulty in trusting, and continually believing that I was and never would be good enough because he didn’t want to stay, I opened my father’s eyes – if for but a moment – the the very real consequences of the decision he didn’t fully think out.

By my junior year of college, the void my father had left was more than just an adult male to look up to in my life. In his physical absence I had found the true meaning of what it meant to be loved unconditionally by my mom taking on more roles than she ever thought she’d have to, to provide and care for me while ensuring I had all the opportunity in the world to be anything I could imagine. I am indebted to her constant support and unending love for me. For her choice to not only stay, but to overcome, and to conquer. I also came to know what it meant to be held in the arms of the Lord and know true acceptance and all encompassing love and the image of God as Father, a perfect father, and I his perfectly imperfect child. Yet it was in that face to face conversation with my father, verbalizing in person all the wrong that had come from that single decision, and what I had been through because of it that I was able to truly forgive and have that hole filled completely; regardless of a lack of apology.

Through the whole process, my husband has been the one who has helped me to understand the love and forgiveness of the One who seeks to have us as His children. And in the past few years, I’ve grown to fully understand why he has. Because his father made a choice as well. Three years ago when my husband proposed, both of his parents (obviously) increased interest in getting to know me even better than they already had. And when it  came time for our wedding day when my brother walked me down the aisle, Pops (my father-in-law) made it known that should I need someone to dance with during the “father-daughter dance”, that he would be there to jump in. And with that one statement, he verbalized his choice. To love me like he does his own daughter. To be there for any situation that needed a father figure. And to continue to be an example to my husband of what it means to be a dad. And while he may never understand completely the significance of his choice, I will be forever changed because of it.