Brie Gowen

Savor the Essence of Life

Dads, Take Time With Your Daughters

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Dads, take time with your daughters. Take the time to play, the time to laugh, the time to give chase as they scream excitedly with glee.

Let go of adult responsibility, if only for a moment, and pick her up to spin her around. One day she’ll be too heavy.

Forget about the pending project. Start a new project of her choosing. One day she won’t ask for your help.

Dads, take time with your daughters. Take time to notice she brushed her hair. She took extra time with each stroke of the brush, smoothing her long, blond hair, just hoping you would notice how it glinted in the light. One day she may not care if you notice.

Take the time to compliment her dress, her new shoes, the way she partnered her pink, flowery shorts with that purple, mermaid top. She’ll use your example for measuring a future admirer. One day your opinion won’t be the one she seeks the most. Take advantage of it now.

Dads, take time with your daughters. Slow down and notice her smile. If it’s there, or if it’s not. Bring it out more often. Teach her the world takes notice at her laugh, it seems brighter and more hopeful when she smiles. Capture those smiles in your pocket. You’ll want to bring them out when the pitter patter of her feet no longer fills your home.

Take the day off. Take the week off. Take the time to invest in what really matters. It’s not a trip around the world she wants. It’s just you.

Put down your phone, turn off your video game, save the ballgame to watch later. Take the time to listen, really listen. What makes her giggle uncontrollably? What brings stars to her eyes? What does she want to be when she grows up? Tell her she can be anything she dreams to be!

Dads, take time with your daughters. Show them that time with them is precious. Set a standard their future husband will need to follow. Don’t leave an example to chance, or allow the example to be absence.

Let them know work is second, that a career is just that, but family is everything. Let them know they can achieve anything, but let them know they don’t have to do great things for you to know they’re great. Tell them they are priceless while they still have ears to hear your compliments. Let your loving, tender praise be the norm rather than the exception.

Dads, take time with your daughters. Take time to lead them, guide them, correct them, discipline them, teach them. Love corrects wrongdoing, but loves despite it. Let them know your love isn’t based on good performance, but because of your love you model such a thing. Don’t leave discipline to the teacher, the pastor, the coach, or just to mom. Because even in discipline they will see love, and then they will see grace. Give them the example of grace.

Dads, take the time to comprehend the enormous impact you have in your child’s life. Understand you are their rock, their strength, their protection, and their first glimpse of what true love really means. You are the goodness they will see in the world, or you are the emptiness they will carry. You are the initial builder of confidence and the example of how to understand true beauty in the long term. You fill a place in their heart than no one else can, and if you don’t insert yourself into their life from the beginning, they will hold that empty spot for the rest of their life, never knowing why they feel like they do.

Take the time, dad, to see the task before you. It’s not just breadwinner or clog fixer. Your role is actually one of utmost importance. The thing is, you can kinda do it, like halfway work at it, and she will be ok. She’ll still grow in beauty and knowledge, but with your presence and attention she will actually flourish. Take the time, dads, to watch your daughters bloom, and realize that you had a hand in the lovely women they will become as you nourish them with your attention.

Take the time, dad, before the time is gone.

When One Parent Has Already Passed Away

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Last night I sat on the couch in silence after putting children to bed, and as the stillness enveloped me I found my mind able to ponder the day. Though I tried to keep it occupied with mindless folly via Facebook I couldn’t help but notice the mood that permeated my thoughts, and as I sat in the dim living room with my husband I felt the fear creeping into my heart. I was worried about my daddy. 


All day I had pushed away any real concern. I had made it move over to make way for logical thought. I brushed over my emotions with my own nursey questions, and I had approached the entire happening of my father’s hospitalization with a medical mindset. It was a light stroke, or something like that since we didn’t really know, nothing to get up in arms about, but I guess after a full day of smiling strongly I was feeling a bit weak. 

This morning when I woke the reality of my dad laying in a hospital bed surrounded me, and I realized that even though my nurse brain knew he was stable, my daughter mind was worried about him. I couldn’t lose him. 

It didn’t matter that I knew he wasn’t knocking at death’s door. What seemed to matter was that I knew death came like a thief in the night, and ever since it had stole my mother before I was ready to say goodbye, things had changed. My perception had changed after we buried my mom, and I couldn’t pretend that the people I loved would always be with me. I knew that accidents happened, that sickness befell the strongest of individuals, and that once someone was gone you no longer had the luxury of picking up the phone to say hello. No matter how much you wanted to. 

My dad was going to be okay, my logical mind told me so, but my daughter broken-heart whispered the things I didn’t want to hear, the rampant, rambling thoughts I normally kept hidden way down deep. I knew the pain of losing one parent, and something about that hard knock opens your eyes to the gift of life still lived around you. And anything that threatened to rock that boat was a hard pill to swallow. 

I wasn’t ready to see my strong father lying weak in a hospital bed. I wasn’t prepared to watch him have difficulty swallowing, or to realize he couldn’t remember speaking with me the day before. I didn’t like the tired look in his eyes, and as I stood there looking at his heavy lids droop I just wanted to crawl into his lap like I did when I was little. I needed him to hold me more than ever. But his right arm was too weak. 

Even now I sit crying as I hold my own daughter in my lap, and I’m ambushed by emotion at the idea of my strong tower suddenly so frail. I realize I wasn’t ready to go visit my dad in the hospital, and the pain I still feel over my mother passing makes kissing his cheek and leaving his side even harder than it would have been before. 

My only solace at a world overcome by sickness and death is the strong arms of my Heavenly Father that hold me so tight when my earthy father is far too tired to do the same. Right now I know my daddy will be okay, and though this scared me some, I know he always will be. Our Abba Father holds him too. 

What I do know is that already having one parent who has died opens your eyes to what’s before you. It makes you appreciate the people still in your life, and hug them a little tighter than you might have before. It causes you to hold that embrace a little bit longer, and brush a kiss on prickly cheeks more often. You hold that sleepy gaze a moment more, and you linger for a minute before you walk out the door. 

It also awakens you to where you have been lacking, all the ways you’ve let life get so busy that you forget to frequently tell the people who are most dear to you, “I love you so much.” 

I’m glad it’s not too late. 

So you tell them that you care, and you decide to appreciate them more. You thank God for daddies, and for mommies too, for time and relationships, and for every moment you are given together. You thank God for Heaven, and especially that death never wins. You wait expectantly and patiently for a reunion that awaits like no other.  You see more readily the gift of one another, and you cherish each and every day that you are given. 

A Letter for the Dad Who Left Me

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Dear Father,

I recently came across a folder on my Facebook messenger that I did not realize existed. It was a message archive Facebook had filtered for me of people I was not “friends” with, and in this place I found a message from my Aunt Lynn, your sister. She wasn’t a woman I could remember, but her name was one my mother had mentioned to me before. In fact she had said we favored. 

Aunt Lynn had reached out to me, and since you left when I was just a small child of five I hadn’t seen her since before that. In her message she mentioned that you had spoken of my blog, and that surprised me since a Contact Page is easily accessible on my website, yet I hadn’t heard a word. But then I thought of all the things I had written over the years. Wince. 

A large number of my blog posts have mentioned you and your absence, and I cringed wondering what you had thought of my musings. I wrote those things with no knowledge that you would ever see them, but now knowing that you might I decided to pen this letter just for you. 

First off, my intention is not to hurt you. That would do neither of us any good. I don’t desire to “get back at you” or even “lash out” to try and make myself feel better. You see, the fact is that I’ve forgiven you. I’m not mad, and I haven’t been for many years. I came to a place where I had to realize some people aren’t made to be dads who are present in their children’s life, and that’s just how it is. 

But although I have forgiven you and I don’t wish you any ill thoughts, I do want you to know how your actions have impacted my life. I think it’s only fair that you know. I don’t know the complete specifics of what went on between you and my mother. I only know what I heard, what I personally remember, but most importantly, how it all affected me in the end. 

I don’t think people realize how their actions impact another, or even how it can serve like ripples upon the water after a hastily thrown stone. They don’t see that absence can impact just as much as presence, and that empty places sometimes leave hollow hearts. 

When my mother remarried and I decided as a young girl that I liked this new man, I watched him with a distrusting eye. I remember once pouring Elmer’s glue in his backpack so that he wouldn’t be able to leave like you had done. 

Because of your decision to go away a part of me always feared he would go too, no matter how much he proved his love for me. 

Did you know that even as a thirty year old woman, when my mother died, I feared he would decide there was no longer anything to tie us together?! Because of that deep-seated rejection I still carry to a degree, I irrationally was afraid my adopted daddy would be done with me. Crazy, I know. 

I don’t want to place my self-esteem issues on you, or even the string of failed relationships I experienced where I chased men trying to find one who loved me. I won’t try and put a Freudian twist on it all, or say I tried too hard to please a man who never really loved me over and over again because of some “daddy issues” I have. I just won’t do that. 

I’ll just say it hurt. It hurt when you left. When you left the first time, the second time, and even the third. 

It hurt when I tried to keep visiting you as an eight year old and you didn’t have time for me. 

It hurt when you gave up your parental rights so easily, although I know now that was God’s will for me. 

It hurt when I reconnected with you when I was twenty, but you let me drift back away. 

It hurt that you didn’t know me at all, or that your wife signed the birthday cards. 

It hurt when I called you to cry about Mom’s death, and you had no idea what to say to me. 

I don’t know why I sought your comfort so much at that time, but I did. 

And it hurts that as I write this that unwanted, unexpected tears come to my eyes. 

But we cannot undo hurt feelings anymore than we can un-break an overturned vase. Instead what I can do is tell you how the good Lord has used it. 

God showed me through the adoption by my Dad, Michael, how it feels to be chosen. It feels lovely. To be picked to be loved, that is precious. Dad has done a really great job. 

God showed me how He also adopted me into His Kingdom, and I was able to grasp more deeply the Father Heart of God. He showed me that despite any earthly hurt I could cry out Abba Father and He would be there.

He would never leave me. 

I guess you can see why that meant so much to me, and why now I cling to my faith so deeply. It could have gone the other way, but I’m glad it did not. 

I see now that every thing that has happened to me God has orchestrated. Did He want you to leave? No. I don’t think that was His design, but when you did He worked with it and He set into motion the many things in my life that would bring me back to Him. 

So the end of my story is a happy one. I don’t know if you’ve ever wondered or worried if I’m ok. And if you haven’t, that’s fine. My joy rests on no man. But if you do then I can tell you this. 

Although your leaving hurt me then, wounded me later, and impacted me in so many ways, it did not destroy me. I am fine. I am stronger, wiser, and quick to keep the flicker alive in my own daughters’ eyes. I have chosen a man who is a wonderful husband and father to our children, and I don’t take him for granted one bit. 

The thing is, I love you, and honestly, sometimes I think of you. I think of you and it makes me sad. So then I push those thoughts away. 

In Honesty,

Your Daughter

I Could Do This Without You, But I’m Glad I Don’t Have To

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Last night I lay rocking our youngest daughter to sleep, and when I was certain she was out good and hard I started to rise from the recliner. But then I stopped myself. You know how it is. The way her lips puckered out like the most beautiful pout ever, and the way her eyelashes curled all the way to the sky. I just had to take pause. I had to stop and kiss her. I kissed her lips, her forehead, her cheek, and as my grateful lips lingered I thanked the Lord for her life. 

And then I thanked Him for you. 

Gazing at the wonder of this child we had created together made me unable to not think about you. She was ours, and I was so appreciative for that, but I also couldn’t help offering my thanks for you. 

I never knew I could love something as much as I do being a mother. It’s my calling, and the job, although often thankless and exhausting, it fills me with joy. You know this. But what you may not know is how being your wife is the grandest thing I do. The fact that I get to spend my life with you and bring up our children together is the best gig on planet earth. I love raising our children, but it’s even better that I get to raise them with you. 

The thing is, I’m pretty good at it I think. I enjoy it, and I do a decent job even though some days I may think otherwise. I’m a pretty great mom, overall, and I love it enough that I could do it forever. If I had to I think I could even do it without you, just to be quite honest, but I’m so very glad I don’t have to. 

I could dig deep in your absence and provide for our children, but I’m grateful that I’m not in this alone. I’m blessed that I can share this parenting journey with you, my best friend, and not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for that. I’m glad that I have a partner to share the struggles, the sicknesses, and the tantrums. But I’m especially grateful to share with you the joy of watching our children grow in strength, grace, and personal relationship with Jesus. 

I suppose I could do it all without you, but I’m glad I don’t have to. 

I’m glad I have your wisdom, your strength, and your love. I’m grateful for your compassion, your discipline, and your provision. I’m thankful for a man I can not only share the hardships of life with, but one with which I can celebrate all its joys. 

I never knew I would enjoy being a mommy so much, but I also never knew the blessing it would be to my life to watch you be a father. I don’t wish to imagine raising children without you for you are a big reason I’m the mother I am. You inspire me, you encourage me, and your love it helps me to grow as a nurturer to our family. 

In truth I am the mother I am because of the father I share the job of parenting with, and our children are blessed for our team. I love raising our babies, but the greatest joy of my life is that I get to do it with you. 

Last night when I finally rose from the chair and deposited our youngest down to sleep I looked one last time at her face before going to bed myself, and I thanked the Lord again. I thanked Him for her life, and then I thanked Him for her father. 

Happy Father’s Day, my love. I’m glad I get to do this with you. 

  

Being Blood-Related Doesn’t Make a Man a Dad

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I feel very blessed on Father’s Day, and although I probably don’t make time for my Daddy as much as I should, I am fully aware of the special gift I have in him. After losing my Mother, and going through the wide array of emotions I felt trying to celebrate Mother’s Day as a mom but without a mom, I completely understand why a relationship with my living father is a wonderful thing. 

But it’s not just that. While nothing rocks your reality more than someone close to you passing on, I knew before Mom’s death that I had been given something very special in my Dad. After all, he was my second chance. He was my earthly manifestation of God’s grace. He was my own personal display of the Father Heart of God. 

My Dad isn’t my birth father, and while he is so many things to my life, the one thing he is not is a genetic contributor to my conception. But ask me if that matters when I go to buy Father’s Day cards. 

Or rather yet, ask me if blood-typing was of any importance when I needed someone to kiss my scraped knee after I fell as a child. Ask me if DNA held any significance when I had my first broken heart and I needed a strong shoulder to cry on. It mattered not one single bit. 

My biological (I almost hate to use the word) father did not possess the characteristics required to be a dad. He was unable, incapable, and unwilling to provide me the stability, guidance, and relationship that fatherhood entails. Put simply, he wasn’t meant to be a dad. He donated the sperm, but otherwise he felt his contribution to the whole scenario was complete. He didn’t want a relationship with me, and he was too selfish to even attempt one. Aside from any physical or emotional love, he also was unable to provide monetary assistance. Well, he probably could have, but he didn’t.

One of the worst things that ever happened to me was to be abandoned by my biological father, and for him to make the ultimate choice that I wasn’t worth hanging on to. But the best thing that ever happened in my life was when he gave up his parental rights and my Daddy adopted me. I was finally afforded the opportunity to understand the fullness of fatherly love, and that trumped everything!

My little heart had been hardened, broken, crushed, but my Dad taught me how to trust again. 

My biological father and I shared the same blood, but that was where our relationship ended. My Daddy had no genetic connection to me, but he was and is the best example of God’s love I have ever known. He chose me, he fought for me, and he adopted me into his family. He loved me unconditionally like I was his own, and he gave me every single thing I had lacked in my first, failed example of a father/daughter relationship. 

Blood doesn’t make a daddy, and shared genetics doesn’t do it either. A father is a man who makes the conscious choice to raise his child. He makes the decision to be present when they have their first softball game, to listen when they ask the tough questions, or just to hold them when they don’t feel well. A daddy provides for his children, not just financially, but also emotionally. He understands that raising a child is an investment, and that you must put love in to get love out. 

For me Father’s Day is a wondrous celebration. It’s a time when I am reminded that the world gave me a man who couldn’t be a father to me, but the Lord blessed me with a dad. I’m reminded that through the grace of God I was gifted with a man who showed me what a father is supposed to be, who showed me God’s heart here on earth. And for that I am beyond grateful. 

Happy Father’s Day Daddy! You were, are, and will always be the best. 

  

A Word for the Fathers and Fathers-To-Be

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I recently had a young girl on my mind, and though she is still very little, I found myself worrying for her future. Her father was absent from her life, and I wasn’t sure if he even saw her more than once a year. It wasn’t that he lived far away, and even though he and the girl’s mother didn’t see eye-to-eye, I couldn’t understand how that could be a reason to never see his child. Didn’t he care about her?!

See, that’s how my brain works. Maybe he does care about her. Heck, maybe he loves her even, but as the victim of a broken relationship with my own biological father, that’s the kind of thing that will enter my mind. I will worry for this girl’s feelings, for her self-esteem, and for her sense of worth. I will worry because when it comes down to it, I was forever wounded. 

And I guess that’s what I wish he could see, this little girl’s father. And it’s what I wish all men could see. I wish that they could see the power they have over their child’s life and future. Men have the power to destroy, and the power to lift up a life, but in the end it’s their choice how to proceed. 

I am fully aware that there are deadbeat moms out there, but thankfully my own mother was my lifeline during a tumultuous childhood. So many single parents are out there like my mom was, pushing to make their child’s life better, and as the daughter of one of those heroes my hats go off to them. But still…

All the hardworking single moms in the world will never be a dual-parent home, and while these single mothers work so hard to be both a mom and dad, in the end you still have a child left with an empty place in their heart. And that’s what I wish absent fathers could see. As a daughter with a hole in her heart left by her father, that is what I’m trying to get across. 

Single parents shouldn’t take offense to that fact. Single parents are trying, and are doing exceptionally well with the hand that they have been dealt, but they can never fully cover the void left by an absent parent. No matter how hard they try. 

My Mom loved me so very much, and I never doubted that. I also had the blessed opportunity to gain another dad here on this earth. This wonderful man adopted me, treated me like his own flesh and blood, and showed me how a father was supposed to love his child. But still…

Still I was a little girl, even when I became a big girl, and later a woman, left wondering, why did he leave me?

When a man becomes a father he forever holds a piece of the child he helped create, and when he decides to not be a part of that child’s life they feel like something is missing. If they’re like me they’ll seek that affirmation elsewhere. They’ll seek it later in life as the approval of man, or perhaps as the temporary healing they find provided by drugs or alcohol. And even as they hop from one man’s bed to another seeking love they will forever wonder, what’s wrong with me? 

Yes, there’s an exception to every rule. Some young women will be stronger despite your betrayal of them as their absent father. Some will strive for healthy happiness in solid relationships, and thank God, some will find healing early through the love of Christ. Some young women will succeed despite the past hurt you caused. But many will not. Too many will not at all. Do you really want to take that chance?

Look at the world of prostitution. Look at promiscuous women in and out of abusive relationships. Look at men and women alike suffering under the steel hand of addiction. Do you know what a majority of these broken people will have in common? Yes, an absent father. A father who gave them up. And they will be the first to tell you that they still wonder, what was so bad about me that I wasn’t worth fighting for? Why was I so easy to let go?

Maybe I’m way off base here. Maybe I’m just a wounded little girl who can’t let go of the father who gave her up. But what if I’m not? What if you have the power in your hand to make your child feel special, or to conversely, make them feel worthless? What will you do with that?

Over the years I found a lot of healing in my life through a relationship with the Lord, and I discovered the true meaning of love through the character of my Father God. And I’m so grateful for that. I’m so grateful for a mother who loved me, and an adoptive dad who is my absolute hero. But when I look back at some of the low points in my life I am all too aware of how Satan used my biological father’s rejection of me to bring me down. And I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. 

I’m so happy to know my daughters never doubt their father’s love for them. They watch our love towards one another, and they are given a wonderful example of family through this. I’m so grateful for that for them, but I am also blessed that their dad understands the power he holds in their little lives. He sees that his words of affirmation and love are molding their character, and I know he would never let them go. 

He also has a daughter from a previous, broken marriage, but she too is very aware of how much her daddy loves her. He shows her every chance he gets. Just because the parents romantic relationship is severed, this doesn’t mean the relationship with child should be too. See what I’m saying? 

Children need to know daddy loves them. They don’t need to feel like they got divorced too. It’s hard enough as it is. 

  
Men, you have a great task before you. You are molding future generations. You are making future leaders and healthy individuals that will contribute in a major way to society as a whole. But you have to take this role seriously and understand the ramifications of your absence. You don’t want to leave a void in your children’s life. 

Just don’t. 

For the fathers, and even for the future fathers-to-be, realize what you are capable of in this life. You are capable of building a child’s self-esteem in a way that no man can tear apart. That’s power! 

Or you can be responsible for forever wounding a life. 

So I guess my question is, “what will you choose?”


As side note I am in no way advocating for anyone to stay in an abusive relationship for the sake of a child. That’s a completely separate discussion than the one at hand. So please don’t confuse the issue or misunderstand. This post is for parents who make the choice to not be a part of their child’s life. Period.