Father's Day for the Moms Who Became Dad
- coachinghope4u
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
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If you've ever survived divorce, you know there are moments that don't make sense to anyone else.
Moments so small they seem insignificant from the outside.
A suitcase.
A church pew.
A text message.
Yet somehow those moments become landmarks in your story.
This is the story of one of mine.
On this Father’s Day, the Lord gave me the gift of these verses, and I would like to offer it to the single moms who function as dads every single day:
4Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame.
Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and re
member no more the reproach of your widowhood.
5 For your Maker is your husband— the Lord Almighty is his name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.
6 The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—a wife who married young, only to be rejected,” says your God.
7 “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back.
8 In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your Redeemer.
There were moments during the discoveries in my marriage and the ensuing divorce when I felt as if the Lord had turned away from me. I raged at Him.
One of my most challenging seasons came when the divorce was still fresh and the children’s father took our four children on vacation for two weeks. It was the first time they had been away from me for that long, and, conversely, the first time I had been without all four of them for so long.
I prepared their suitcases with containers labeled for each piece of clothing, tucked little love notes among their toiletries, and hoped they had enough shorts and underwear to make it through the two weeks.
My heart broke over and over each time I zipped up another little packing cube, used the label maker to identify the items in the bag and placed it inside their suitcase. The final zip of the suitcase closure felt so painful, I thought my heart might shatter.
It took all my strength to show my children excitement and explain how much fun it would be. Privately, the only strength I had was knowing they would return—and that I would see them at church in two weeks. They had been allowed to continue attending their childhood church with me on Sundays. I banked everything I had on seeing them there.
Those two weeks were long. I stained my deck, rearranged the house, cleaned rooms, and spent a lot of time alone—so much time, in fact, that my mom commented on the amount of external self-talk I was doing. The silence was stifling. After carrying the constant ruckus of four children in my soul, their absence made room for me to hear my own silent wails.
As the long-awaited day arrived—church on Sunday—my spirits climbed, and I poured all my energy into wondering what I would say. Who would I hug first? Would they want to be hugged? Would they know how much I missed them? Did they miss me? I hoped they had a good time and hadn’t been homesick.
And then I got the text: our children would be attending church with their dad, at his church.
I lost it.
Two weeks of pinning all my joy, hope, grief, excitement, and loneliness on one moment and it was gone in one text. It felt like D-day all over again, and my nervous system exploded. I raged at the Lord. How could He remove church from me? It was church, for Christ’s sake.
In that moment, I felt God turn from me. I was on my knees, begging Him for church. Weeping, ugly sobbing, cussing like I had never done before. This betrayal felt different than the marital betrayal. God was supposed to be looking out for me.
I got into bed and did not respond to anything for hours. With my one piece of hope gone, I felt like I had nothing left.
The next morning, I received a call from my oldest saying that their father had been in a biking accident and had broken his collarbone. Numbly, I asked what they needed from me, if anything. He asked me to come to their father’s house. When I arrived, I was told to leave by their father, who was driving himself to the ER.
But, I felt a flicker of hope. Maybe this was God making a way for them to come to church with me. However, hours later, after confirming a very broken collarbone, their father let me know he would still be taking our children to church with him.
That communication shifted something in me. I moved from focusing only on God’s imminent power, to recognizing the choice God gives us through free will. This was no longer just a God battle; it was also an earthly battle—a choice to drive four children to church with a broken collarbone, instead of what I perceived as a "gentle" nudge from God to let the children attend the church they knew and loved.
That realization helped me reframe what my battle actually was.
In Isaiah 54:8, there is a reference to anger, and I still do not fully understand why God would turn from me. But the louder part of this Scripture—the part I hold on to—is when He says, “with everlasting kindness, I will have compassion on you.”
On this Father’s Day, those of you who are my casserole widows, please take this with you:
"Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.5 For your Maker is your husband— the Lord Almighty is his name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.6 The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—a wife who married young, only to be rejected,” says your God.7 “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back.8 In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment,but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your Redeemer."
I hear your torment, and I recognize your strength. You are not alone.
The Lord sees what you carry, even when no one else does. His compassion has not run out. His kindness is still everlasting.
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