06/21/2026
Father’s Day Thoughts
My dad died in 1986 from alcoholism and su***de.
My parents divorced when I was somewhere between two and three years old. After that, Dad moved to Oklahoma, where he lived until his death. Looking back, I can count on two hands the number of times I spent any meaningful time with him after the divorce.
For many years, I carried confusion, hurt, questions, and a relationship that never had the chance to become what I wished it could have been.
Then something happened.
The Bible tells us to honor our father and mother. It doesn’t say to honor them only if they were perfect. It doesn’t say to honor them only if they did everything right. It simply says to honor them.
That was a difficult lesson for me.
Through recovery, faith, prayer, Scripture, and the guidance of people wiser than myself, I slowly learned how to honor my father—not by pretending he was something he wasn’t, but by accepting him as he was.
A flawed man.
A hurting man.
A man who lost a battle many others have lost.
When I finally came to terms with that relationship, something unexpected happened.
The healing didn’t stop with me.
It led to reconciliation and meaningful relationships with my half-sisters from my father’s previous marriage and with other relatives I likely never would have known otherwise.
What I thought was the end of a story became the beginning of several beautiful new ones.
That’s the ripple effect.
Life rarely unfolds the way we think it should. Sometimes we don’t understand why things happen the way they do. But I have found that when we trust the process, obey what we know is right, honor our parents, forgive others, and even learn to love our enemies, remarkable things begin to happen.
I’ve spent more than three decades visiting prisons.
If you took me into almost any state prison and asked me to speak with 100 inmates, I could tell you three things that would be true an overwhelming majority of the time:
First, their relationship with their earthly father was compromised in some way—through absence, neglect, abuse, addiction, abandonment, or dysfunction.
Second, their reading, writing, and comprehension skills are often below average.
Third, their relationship with God is frequently confused, distorted, damaged, or nonexistent.
Over the years, I’ve seen these patterns too many times to ignore them.
A father’s influence matters.
The relationship we have with our earthly father often shapes how we see our Heavenly Father.
The evidence isn’t just academic to me. It’s what I’ve seen, heard, and experienced firsthand.
So if you’re a dad reading this today, pay attention.
Your children are watching.
They don’t need perfection.
None of us can give them that.
But they do need your presence, your effort, your integrity, your affection, and your example.
Give them everything you’ve got.
And if you’re someone carrying a father wound, if you’ve got a hole in your soul shaped like a dad who wasn’t there, don’t let that be the end of your story.
Through recovery.
Through counseling.
Through therapy.
Through faith.
Through seeking, asking, and knocking.
Healing is possible.
The ripple effects of that healing may take you places you never imagined.
If you had a wonderful father, I’m genuinely happy for you.
If you didn’t, remember this:
Your past may explain part of your story, but it does not have to define its ending.
Choose wisely.
Grace & Peace,
Harold E. Long
