Sometimes one person’s story can stand in for that of millions. Sometimes one person can explain a situation that affects not only themselves but also countless others. Those of us who were blessed to grow up with fathers who were present, active, and engaged may struggle to understand the particular sorrows and challenges that come to those whose fathers were detached, uninvolved, or perhaps entirely absent. Blair Linne’s Finding My Father: How the Gospel Heals the Pain of Fatherlessness tells her own story but, in its own way, tells the story of so many other people as well. She begins in this way: “The section on my birth certificate reserved for my father’s name is blank. The inside of the narrow, barren horizontal box has neither been struck through nor erased. It simply lies willfully untouched. So my birth certificate, like many others, tells by omission the story of a mother and father who were never married. This piece of paper was seldom referred to. It almost didn’t exist at all, because I almost did not.” Her mother was young when she had her first child and was young still when she became pregnant with her second. She determined she would pursue an abortion, but was dissuaded by a pastor and soon gave birth to Blair. And while Blair was much loved by her mother, she remained distant from her father—or the man she believed was her father. But that story is her’s and is best told in her own words. The reason I read … Continue reading The Gospel and the Pain of Fatherlessness