Stick Figure Daddy
We’re on vacation this week, so I thought I’d tweak some older pieces I wrote before I was blogging.
From February 2003…
One of my daughters drew a picture of the two of us. This particular picture is significant because of the more "realistic" features in it. This is the first drawing she made with fairly accurate cranial follicle features. In this picture, Caroline and I are holding hands and she is crying because I am sick. (I am the one with the reverse Mohawk). It's amazing to see the progression in all of our kids' drawings. We go from stick figures and cave-paintings to five fingers and toes to dresses and pants and so on.
As a parent, there is a part of me that likes the "Stick Figure Daddy.” Things are simple with the SFD. There aren't a whole lot of details in the picture, but you can tell who's the Daddy and who's not, and that is enough. With the SFD, the physical likeness of me is not very accurate, but the emotional likeness (from her perspective) is very accurate...I am Daddy. I am bigger than everyone else. I have no faults. I am the savior of the day for my daughter. I am the one whose hand she wants to hold.
But, the problem is that I know that deep down inside, I am not a Stick Figure Daddy; I am, instead, a Significantly Flawed Daddy. As my kids get older, they are going to realize this more and more. My emotional and spiritual warts will begin to show up in the pictures of the SFD in their heads and hearts. I will do things that cause them pain; I will not do things that will cause pain as well. I will lose the charm of simplicity as life gets more complicated for them and me.
So, what am I to do? The only thing I can. I will continue to draw for them a picture of the only Daddy that never changes. The only Daddy who is always there for them—even when we cannot see Him in the fog. The only Daddy who never gets sick and who watches over them when they do. I will continue to sing and paint and illustrate for them who “Abba” God is—starting with a "Stick Figure" God that they can understand and continuing with all the different, wonderful, and marvelous pictures of Jesus that they can see and read about.
As my flaws get larger in their pictures, my hope for my kids is that God will shine brighter and they will see Him more clearly for who He really is as the days and years go by: The Author and The Perfecter of our faith, The Great Artist of the world, and the One who—though he holds the waters of the world in the hollow of His hand—still knows their names and wipes their tears one by one.
Stick Figure Daddy turns into Significantly Flawed Daddy who points children to Supremely Faithful Daddy. He is the One who loves without compromise or comparison.
As our beloved friend, Brennan Manning, has said:
“Yes, Abba is very fond of you.”
