Daughters Learn From Fathers How Men Should Treat Them

Daughters Learn From Fathers How Men Should Treat Them

This weekend I spoke at our Women's Encounter Retreat with 250 women from New Life. I came away exhausted, elated and with a renewed empathy for women and the challenges they face. Invariably there are two themes that hit a deep emotional chord; The Father-Daughter Wound and Releasing and Forgiving from Abuse.

As both the father of a 19 year old daughter and a pastor of many women I have come to realize the vital role fathers play in the formation of daughters and the way they relate to their world.

In her  book, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know , Dr. Meg  Meeker explores the vital role fathers play in the lives of their daughters.

She explains that "Fathers are their daughters’ first experience of male love, compassion, kindness, anger, and cruelty. These early experiences are imprinted on a girl’s brain and heart. For the rest of her life, every experience she has with a male is filtered through her experiences with her father. So if she trusts her father at an early age, she is more likely to trust men. If she has been hurt by her father, she will shy away from men and/or make poor choices about who she allows into her life."

She notes that "Girls gravitate toward what they know, not necessarily what they want. The familiar is powerful and often subconsciously causes girls to do all sorts of things they’d rather not. Many women swear that they will not marry abusive men if their fathers were abusive to them or to their mothers. But they marry them in spite of their best intentions, because they know what life with abuse feels like — and in a way it’s less frightening than the unknown life of happiness."

I am convinced along with Dr. Meeker that Fathers teach their daughters to know how a man should treat them. The way a father treats his daughter conditions her for her future relationships with men. I am aghast at the number of women who suffer from absent, emotionally distant, disengaged or even abusive fathers. 

Women unable to experience the  Love of the Father  tend to struggle with:

• A lack of inner joy.
• Insecurity in their relationships.
• The tendency to feel  inadequate .
• Inability to express love to others freely.
• Unexplained feelings of  rejection .

The final hour of the retreat I heard testimony after testimony of brave, bold and courageous women declaring their new found destiny in God. One of these women declared with tear stained cheeks how she always wanted a father that would love her as a daughter. With trembling voice she said "Today I realized I have always had a great Father that deeply loved me. My heavenly Father." 

On the drive back home I kept thinking about my daughter Marissa currently in college. My deep desire and greatest joy is that she would be secure in my love and in the unfailing love of her heavenly Father. 

                          (Painted by Juan Baez at New Life Women's Encounter Retreat 2012)

Romans 8:14-16 Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons (daughters) of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but received the Spirit of sonship (daughtership). And by him we cry “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.