A real Father's Day

The best gift some fathers will ever receive is the gift of forgiveness! As long as we hold them in unforgiveness, they'll never grow beyond the stupid,immature,mislead,fearful decisions they made and some of our mothers made to keep them out of our lives. 

Happy Father's Day (including my birth father who IS on fb),it's God to forgive. Forgive and LIVE! And while you're at it, be grateful for the step-in dads out there who helped us along the way!  Those people include: J.B. Horton, Rev. Joe A. Foster,Joseph Hobson Jr. (Uncle Joe) and my late grandad Leroy A. Wilson,Sr.


Thanks to these men and the steady presence of my mother Valerie Wilson Mitchell I was kept on the right path. As a young man growing up in a gang infested neighborhood,gunshots were heard in lieu of a lullaby. 

I wasn't on this journey alone however, I have two sisters who had their own shares of struggles. The three of us grew up without the presence of a father in the home but it was at church,and family presence that the men in our lives filled in for our birth fathers. 

This Father's Day was a bit peculiar for me because forgiveness has come again. As a father raising my own children,I see the importance of my presence in their lives. I also see firsthand the way Father God views us,His children.  Because God kept His hand on me and my sisters,we can't live as if He didn't. By this I say this:all roots of bitterness,malice and contempt must be replaced with gratefulness. 

It could have been us who fell into the trap of fatherlessness by immature parents,drug abusers,gang members and criminals. God kept us and we each acknowledge that. Accompanying gratefulness and gratitude is forgiveness and the release of resentment that has become a plague in the community at large. 

I could hate my father,but I choose not to! I have to forgive him and release him into his God ordained destiny that no mistake or lack of familial commitment can ever hold him from. Paul said it best  that nothing anywhere shall be able to separate us from the love of God. (Rom. 8:37-39)

My mess ups may not include not taking care of my family (Paul told Timothy that the man that doesn't is worse than an unbeliever-I. Tim. 5:8) but God's forgiveness isn't limited to the scope of our reality! God is faithful to see His work come to pass in our lives and the same applies for absentee fathers. Who knows when,but with the first step is often forgiveness coupled with gratefulness!