to own a dragon...

I read this book when I was at Jess's for her shower. It was on the sale table at Family Christian Store and I pounced on it post haste. I really love Don Miller's writing. I connect to it quite deeply and have been really excited to read all of his books. I knew that this book, "reflections on growing up without a father," would be a very personal journey and I couldn't wait to dive in. This book, however, wasn't written for me. My father didn't abandon his family never to be heard from again and I didn't have to figure out how to grow up to be a man, thankfully.

My father lived about 20 miles away my whole life (except the very beginning) and I got a whole new one when I was about 10. Yet, I still don't have a dad. Having two non-existent father-daughter relationships is sometimes more painful than not having a chance for one. It feels really selfish to say that. Anyone whose father really did abandon them would be really mad at me for saying that, but that's how I feel. Somehow it's almost like all of the issues are intensified. There's more guilt there because I see ways it is my fault that my dad isn't around in the ways I need him to be, the weird hope of feeling like any day now he could just call and say "I love you," and take me out to lunch and ask me how my life is going and I would tell him honestly and he would really care about the answer. It's so strange to know what his voice sounds like but not to know what it sounds like for him to say "I love you." I'm sure I've heard him say those words individually, and if I tried hard enough I could probably piece it together in my head. I know his mouth but can't see his lips form the words. I know his arms but can't remember their weight around me, can't remember him hugging me back. I've seen him cry, but not with pride or joy. If I hear my mom say, "But he really does love you," one more time...

Enough of that. Here are some quotes from the book that really hit me. There are probably too many of them to remain interesting so I'm sorry. Maybe it will just encourage you to read the book. The best part is that it really does speak to everyone because it teaches us how to be fathered by God, which is something I crave, but often cannot grasp. Here you go:

"There were times, I confess, I wondered whether my family would be better off without me. I grew up believing that if I had never been born, things would be easier for the people I loved."

"Even the instinct God gave him wasn't strong enough to make my dad stay. And that has made me feel, at times, there is this detestable person living within my skin who makes people feel as though they must carry me on their backs...For many years, all I could do in the healing process was recognize I felt inferior and tell myself this feeling was a lie. For a long time, I couldn't go any further than this."

"there aren't many pleasures I enjoy more than sleep. I sleep till I am done, normally, and haven't set an alarm in years. I'm not lazy, mind you, I just find it odd anybody would program a machine to wake them. God mad the brain so it would wake on its own, and as a follower of Jesus, I am a strict adherent to His system. Call me a fundamentalist if you want."

"I can only describe the human personality as one designed for relationship with something from which it has been separated. I hear this rift in conversations, read it in books, listen to it in music, interpret it through psychology, and so on and so on. The idea of this separation has come to feel obvious to me...But this gives us a quandary, doesn't it? A problem for you and me is that our fathers abandoned us. And to come to you and say it wasn't only your father who left, but God too, would be unkind. But that's how it feels. The only bright side, if it could be considered bright, is that we are not alone."

"The feeling a person who grows up without a father has is that God is disinterested. It's a difficult feeling to explain, because I also believe God is loving and good and involved. But there is a doubt, you know, a feeling He is somehow removed."

"'It's just you feel like you are a burden on Him,' John said...'that's understandable. That's the message you got from your father. But you have to know, Don, He isn't burdened. He delights in us...' 'Yes, and I know that intellectually, and even somehow believe it. But there are times when it feels like He has withdrawn.'"


I hope this post wasn't too melodramatic. The book really is great. The things that Miller has learned and shared about God as a father are really good and wrapping up excellent teaching with wit and honesty is something I value in his writing a lot.