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Today, we're talking about the dads that we experienced, maybe as a young girl, and maybe even into adulthood. There are different kinds of dads we acknowledge on Father's Day as well as any other old random day of the year. There are dads who nurtured, protected, guided. They laughed, they showed up, and they loved with a steady heart. And if that was your experience, you know as a grown woman now, the gift that your dad was, the gift that you were given. You may not even have realized as a child how precious it was to have a dad who noticed you, delighted in you, taught you, corrected you with love, and helped you feel safe in the world. That kind of fathering leaves a valuable identity imprint. But today I also want to acknowledge other experiences. There are dads who left, who left us physically, emotionally, spiritually, or relationally. There are dads who were in the home, but not really there. They're there, but they're not there. They're not there, they're not present. There are dads who had breath in their lungs, but no tenderness in their heart toward you. There are dads who were harsh, distant, unavailable, addicted, critical, distracted, selfish, and emotionally shut down. There are dads who still are alive today, but remain estranged, showing little or no interest in repairing the relationship, owning their painful behavior as you were growing up or building anything new. And if this is your story, I see you. Today's episode is for the woman who may still be asking in her thoughts today, Dad, why didn't you love me? Why wasn't I worth showing up for? Why didn't you protect me? Why didn't you want to know me? Why didn't you choose me? And I want to say this gently but clearly when we are not shown love as children by our dads, we often create a story that something must be wrong with us. Children are not emotionally equipped to say, my dad is unavailable because of his own wounds, immaturity, sin, limitations, or brokenness. We do not have the brain development to go there as kids. A child then turns that pain inward of not having the gift of a loving, nurturing dad. The child then says to themselves, it must be me. I must not be lovable. I must not be worth staying for. I must not be important. I must not be enough. And that belief can follow us into adulthood and it can feel like a familiar ache and a need, a desperate need to be chosen. And sadly, that dad wound can begin making our adult relationship choices for us. It certainly influences who we choose to have adult relationships with. You may choose people who give who give you crumbs and call it love. And it may feel like love if you didn't even get crumbs growing up. You may confuse inconsistency with excitement, or you may mistake emotional unavailability for mystery. You may chase people who make you feel the same way you felt as little girls, unseen, unsure, anxious, and hungry for affection. And then those unhealthy choices create more heartbreak. And you can see that the cycle just goes on and on, more rejection, which then gives you more evidence that maybe you really are the problem. But you are not the problem. The wound, the false belief, the unhealed pattern is the problem. And I know this emotionally damaging cycle, I know it very intimately because I lived through it. My partner choices were unhealthy until I decided I needed to get emotionally healthy myself. And I don't say that casually because healing is not a cute little checklist. Healing is brave, vulnerable work. It's the kind of work where you have to go back and tell the truth about what happened, what you needed, what you didn't receive, and what you started believing about yourself because of it. For me, the heavy lifting of therapy helped rebuild the beliefs I had about myself. And as those beliefs changed, I began to see people, relationships, and myself differently. And that new lens helped me choose friends and partners with so much more wisdom. Because when we are people pleasers, we often want a wide circle to choose from. We want everybody to like us and approve of us, and we want everybody to pick us. We want to feel wanted so badly that we may ignore the signs that someone is not healthy for us. Does that ring any bells for any of my listeners out there today? We may tolerate crumbs because crumbs feel better than nothing. But as we heal from people-pleasing behavior, something begins to shift. We become more discerning, honest, better observers of people's actions over words. We get a little picky about who gets access to our heart, our time, our energy, and our story. And we stop settling for the crumbs some people have to offer. It means we begin to love ourselves with more wisdom. And we guard our hearts because our hearts are valuable. I want to emphasize that we can intellectually understand why our dads parented the way that they did. They likely had their own childhood story. That doesn't address, however, the emotional toll that it takes on you as a result, which is the father wound that needs healing. So if Father's Day brings up grief for you, I want you to know that grief makes sense. You may be grieving what you never had. You may be grieving what you saw other people receive, and you may be grieving the little girl who waited, who hoped, and who even may have tried harder. The little girl who performed, pleased, stayed quiet, stayed small, or became easy in an attempt to be loved. You may be grieving in fact that your dad still does not seem to understand what his absence or emotional neglect cost you. You may be grieving because even now a part of you wishes he would call, maybe apologize, maybe even change, reach out, or finally see you. And those tears are to be shed, not stuffed or covered with a smile. That's grief, friends. They do not need to be spiritualized so quickly that your heart never gets to be honest. Grieving for us is so hard because we do want to spiritualize and we do want to intellectualize rather than feel those feelings. But yes, we trust God and believe that He restores. But trusting God does not mean pretending something did not hurt. Psalm 68.5 says, God is a father to the fatherless. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like an orphan? Like, I really don't have a dad, then cling to Psalm 68.5. It tells us something beautiful about the heart of God. We have a father, our creator, who loves us more than we can humanly fathom. We are not left alone without love or guidance. We are not forgotten little girls wandering through life, hoping someone will finally find us worthy. God sees us, knows us, and fathers us perfectly. And still today, you may be grieving that you did not experience the loving earthly daddy your heart needed. Me too. And I think there's room for two realities to feel the pain of your earthly father experience while also living in the gratitude of your loving Heavenly Father. You can say, Lord, thank you for being my father, and also say, This still hurts. That's just being honest, isn't it? And being human, by the way. You can say, God, I know you love me, and also say, I wish my dad had known how to love me. You can also say I'm grateful for who you are and still shed tears over what you did not receive. Psalm fifty six eight tells us that God does not overlook our pain. He sees our tears, remembers them, and values them. And first John three one says, See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. There, my friend, is your identity, children of God, chosen and lavished with love by the Father. And maybe today you need to update your identity based on who God says you are, rather than find your identity based on the earthly man who gave you life, but didn't give you tenderness. Your identity has to be rooted in something more stable than your earthly father's limitations. Your identity must be rooted in the love of God. And that may take some healing. It may take some therapy or coaching. And it will take some prayer. I can promise you that. Why would we not allow God and the Holy Spirit to bring healing into that wound? You may need to learn how to feel those feelings you were an you were never allowed to feel. And you may need to learn how to stop chasing emotionally unavailable people. That was definitely a big lesson for me in my journey. It may take learning how to set boundaries with family members who still minimize your pain. And it may take grieving the dad you wished you'd had so you can stop trying to make unavailable people become him. Healing happens in community rather than isolation because wounds that happened in relationship often need safe relationships for healing. We need places where we can share our experience and not be shamed. Old beliefs and practice something new. We need spaces where our tears can be witnessed and where people can help us challenge the old beliefs and start practicing new ones. So, friends, if Father's Day brings tears and heartache, I want to encourage you to take an action step. Maybe that action step is therapy. Maybe it's coaching. Maybe it is a prayer with a trusted friend. Maybe it's journaling the words you never got to say. Maybe it's letting yourself cry instead of staying busy all day. Maybe it's admitting this hurts more than I want it to. Psalm twenty three three says He restores my soul. That is such a beloved verse because it shows us God as a gentle shepherd. He revives weary hearts, he heals broken places, he guides us through life's valleys. He does not shame the sheep for needing care. I hope that you heard that. He restores. So today, please don't force yourself to smile through pain that needs to be acknowledged. You may need to shed those precious tears. You may need to acknowledge your feelings rather than pretend they aren't there. You may need to say, This mattered, this hurts, this shaped me, and I'm ready to let God heal what I could not heal on my own. On perhaps this difficult day of acknowledging your dad, while you make room for this appropriate grief, I also encourage you to plan something that brings you a little fun, a little beauty, maybe a little joy to your heart. So go outside, maybe take a walk, sit by the water, call a safe friend, watch something that makes you laugh, let your tears be witnessed, even if the witness is just you and God. I don't love these Hallmark holidays, but they do serve a purpose. They show us where some of our growth areas are, they reveal what still hurts and where God may be inviting us into deeper healing. And by the way, don't expect to run out of growth areas on this side of eternity. We are all still becoming. We're all still healing. And we are all still learning how to receive God's love and then show up differently in the world because of it. I'm grateful we are on this journey together, being real, telling the truth, and supporting each other, growing more like Jesus in how we show up and love one another. And if you would like my help walking through this kind of healing, you can visit my website at www.rhondamorales.com. You do not have to keep carrying father wounds alone. You do not have to keep choosing crumbs. You do not have to keep living from the belief that something is wrong with you. You are deeply loved by your Heavenly Father, and that love is strong enough to restore your soul. Thanks for listening in today, and I'll talk to you next time.