We Have a Father
Written by Marcie Stokman, Well-Read Mom Founder and President
“It seemed like a particular gift from God the way it all worked out.”
I was sharing with my friend Jason about the birth of Loretta Mary Ann, Pete’s and my eighteenth grandchild. I was able to meet this little one just minutes after her birth!
“Jason, the fact that so many from our family happened to be in the city to welcome Loretta turned it into an event. It was like an embrace from the Father.”
Jason wasn’t so sure: “Aren’t you taking this a bit too far, calling these circumstances a gift from God and an embrace from the Father? Didn’t you say Margaret was almost a week overdue? It seems there was a high probability the baby would be born that weekend.”
His response caught me by surprise. He continued, “It seems like a reduction of reason to call the timing of these events an embrace from the Father. It’s what was bound to happen.”
His honesty provoked a deeper question: Is God intimately involved in our lives? And, if so, is acknowledging the Father working in and through our life circumstances a reduction of our reason?
Not knowing how to respond, I shared a story from when my daughter Margaret was home one Saturday last spring. She was determined to get herself to confession, so I joined her. Walking into the church, I asked the kind of question that is so obvious: right after you ask it, you wonder why you did.
“Margaret, why do you go to confession?”
Of course, I already knew why: to confess my sins and receive God’s forgiveness.
But Margaret’s answer was not mine, and her certainty changed me.
She said, “I go to remember I have a Father. Coming here helps me know again who I am.” Her response woke me up. I realized that the Christian life is not a duty or a set of rules; it is, first of all, a relationship with the Father.
That day, I understood there are two ways I can live: either acknowledging I have a Father and that each day is a gift from Him, or choosing to believe another story, one that says I’m on my own, meandering through life, living as if everything depends on chance or my choices.
Could it be that the latter way of thinking is the real reduction of reason?
Our conversation continued, but through it, I recognized that I was changing. I like to think that part of this change comes about through reading great and worthy books—books that have been, as Flannery O’Connor put it, “written from a perspective in which the truth, as Christians know it, has been used as a light to see the world.” This light then shapes our heart, mind, and soul and educates our imagination to the reasonableness of faith.
It is my hope that you, too, have expanded your mind and soul and way of seeing so as to recognize again, or for the very first time, these words of St. Josemaria Escriva:
“God is a father—your Father!—full of warmth and infinite love—Call him Father frequently and tell him, when you are alone, that you love him, that you love him very much!, and that you feel proud and strong because you are his [daughter].”
Yes, proud and strong! Because we are daughters. Because we are sisters and friends. Because we have a Father. Because we are loved.
Have a beautiful summer, and thank you for being on this journey of reading together.
About Marcie Stokman
Marcie Stokman, M.A., is founder and president of Well-Read Mom, an international movement and book club. As a former clinical nurse practitioner in mental health and longtime homeschooler, she writes and speaks to encourage women and share the power of reading. She and her husband, Peter, have seven children and 20 grandchildren. Marcie is the author of The Well-Read Mom: Read more. Read well.
About Well-Read Mom
In Well-Read Mom, women read more and read well. Our hope is to deepen the awareness of meaning hidden in each woman’s daily life, elevate the cultural conversation, and revitalize reading literature from books. If you would like to have us help you select worthy reading material, we invite you to join and read along with us. We are better together! For information on how to start or join a Well-Read Mom group visit our website wellreadmom.com
