Finding My Father
How the Gospel Heals the Pain of Fatherlessness

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 tells her own story but, in its own way, tells the story of so many other people as well.

The reason I read her book is that I know a number of people who have grown up without fathers and I am eager to know how to better love, serve, and support them. I know that to do that, I will need to better understand the particular struggles that are theirs. And I’m glad to say that Finding My Father has proven helpful.

Linne describes why, despite the insistence of our culture, a mother cannot be a father. She explains why fatherlessness is so often a predictor of certain struggles and patterns of sin. She tells how she has come to understand fatherhood as heavenly before it is earthly, as a description of God before a description of any man.

She explains how the church is able to step into the void left by absent fathers and provide some of what they have not or will not.

“In church, fellow believers become our spiritual brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. Although we may not have had a dad, we can pray that God will send us a family in our church that will be willing to care for us and provide us with a father-figure who will be the masculine influence we need for our development.”

Blair Linne

Finding My Father is a book that deals biblically and compassionately with a sorrow that is familiar to so many.

It is no cold textbook on the matter, but rather a warm and compelling account of one daughter’s desire to know her dad and be known by him, to love and be loved. I expect that many who know that sorrow will blessed and encouraged by it; I expect that many who do not know that sorrow will be better equipped to serve those who do.