For those that don’t have family in their life, holidays can be particularly rough. They may have passed away or for other reasons you just may not be that close. My parents and brothers are alive and as far as I know, well. But it’s been 25 years since I’ve seen them, I’m pretty much dead to them. That being said, I still love them – they’re my family. I love them and I miss them.

I went back and forth yesterday about going to church today on Father’s Day. Every church in America would have a teaching around Father’s Day and mine was no different. Did I want to hear about great fathers? How wonderful fathers are, what they mean to us all? I didn’t even go to church on Mother’s Day – knew it would hurt too much.

But I went today. And of course there were photos showing loving fathers and grandfathers, Pastor even sang a song with his daughter. Of course the message was about God our Father but there were the inevitable comparisons of our earthly father with our Heavenly Father. The men’s Pastor was speaking this morning, and he talked about how even if the Pastor’s daughter (a beautiful and godly woman) would suddenly tell her dad that she wanted nothing more to do with him and nothing more to do with God, that he would still love her through the pain and would do anything to fix those relationships, and I believe that to be absolutely true.

But that is when I of course thought of my own father, who in 25 years has made no effort to reach out to me, to fix our relationship. Pretty much after that I was doing anything I could to not hear the rest of the message. I was remixing music in my head from my recording studio days, I was reliving riding through the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland with that non-stop song. But no matter how loud I tried to make the music in my head, the sound from the speakers in my ears was louder – I still heard it all and my attitude toward my dad, whom I love got worse and worse. How can he call himself a Christian, active in his church and deny I exist? Why is he ok with that? Is that what he calls love?

I was close to coming to tears in church (I had the tissue out of the package and ready in my purse if needed) but I made it through. Toward the end my dear friend sitting next to me sensed I was struggling, knew why and just took my arm in hers.

As I was driving home it suddenly hit me – WHY YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!

No, I’m not talking about my dad, I’m talking about Satan, that son of a bitch. He was hoping I wouldn’t skip church just so he could mess with me during church. He must love holidays because it can make some of us easy prey.

It’s his standard operating procedure. If you can’t get them at home, get them at church. Walking into a church building doesn’t shield you from Satan, his demons and his attempts to poison and destroy you. I should have been ready for it, but I wasn’t and I did let it get to me. Rather than having my eyes on the Father, I was having my own personal pity party – poor me.

That son of a bitch is always looking for a way to get under our skin, to take our eyes off our Father in Heaven and onto ourselves. Hebrews 12:2-3 says “We must keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads us and makes our faith complete. He endured the shame of being nailed to a cross, because he knew that later on he would be glad he did. Now he is seated at the right side of God’s throne! So keep your mind on Jesus, who put up with many insults from sinners. Then you won’t get discouraged and give up.”

Once you realize that Satan is messing with you, then you can tell him to just go away. That’s a power we have within us as Christians, just tell that SOB to go away. He can’t harm us unless we allow him to harm us. So stand firm and learn to recognize when you’re under attack. Once you know what Satan is up to, just look up, to the Father and he’ll embrace you and protect you.

– Blessings

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