Do you know WHAT your Father Wound is?
One of the most important things you can do as a Father Wound Fighter is to acknowledge how your Father Hurt You! It’s not always easy to do that though. What if you don’t know how to acknowledge the hurt? What if you don’t have the words?
One of the best books I’ve ever read was Patrick Morley’s From Broken Boy to Mended Man. He’s the same author that wrote the famous book The Man in the Mirror. I would highly recommend reading it for multiple reasons. One of the reasons is that he points out how our parents wounded us, Dad being one of them. There are a variety of ways: My Dad was Passive, My Dad was Absent, My Dad was Permissive, My Dad was Enabling, My Dad was Angry, My Dad was Demanding, My Dad was Belittling (or a combination of more than one of these). When we know how our Dad wounded us, we have a better hold on acknowledgment and an easier time articulating it.
It’s also important to note that if you don’t know what you needed as a child, it will be harder to understand what was lacking in your relationship with your Dad. Patrick outlines four: Love, Structure, Roots, and Wings. Love and Structure might be easy to explain, but Roots and Wings are a little harder when you don’t have any context. Roots means your Dad made you feel secure, safe, and stable in your home. Wings means your Dad made you feel ready to take on the world. If any of the four were lacking, it will help you more fully understand one of the aforementioned ways Dad could have wounded you. This doesn’t mean that Mom didn’t wound you…it just that here we’re focusing on Dads. I think it is important to mention that God’s perfect design of having two parents to help meet our needs is paramount. That means we need to be careful not to find fault in Dad alone for not meeting our needs as a child, but to be realistic about how he hurt you by not meeting those needs.
I’m looking forward to writing to you again next week! Enjoy your weekends everybody!
For the Kingdom,
-Matthew J. Wolak
