"Dance With My Father"

Read: Joshua 15: 13-19 (cf. Judges 1: 11-15)

We spend much of our adult lives blaming our mothers for what they didn't give us, or blaming them for giving us too much of the wrong thing. It's different with our fathers. We hardly knew what to expect of the men who passed in and out of our lives, if at all, bearing the title "Daddy." We figured out from their detached reserve, their dark moods, and their extended absences to be grateful for whatever attention they directed our way. Therapists are only now beginning to help us understand as women that what a father gives, or fails to give his daughter, affects a girl child's expectations not only of herself, but her expectations of other men, her experience of love, family, career, and, above all, her image of God the Father.

Fortunately, not all women report having painful memories of their relationship with their fathers. Many can actually recall fathers who were affectionate, loving, open, sensitive, caring, stable, patient, supportive, dependable, someone who took an active role in rearing them. A large number remember fondly their role as the favored daughter in the family, affectionately dubbed by their fathers as "daddy's girl." Researchers insist that ambitious, successful, high-powered women tend to be driven by strong memories of their fathers (regardless whether those are positive or negative memories). But not all daughters are driven to become overachievers as a result of their father's influence. Some daughters are wounded in ways that make it difficult for them to grow up, leaving them constantly helpless and dependent. Whether you belong to the first group or the second, or whether you vacillate somewhere between being overly aggressive and being painfully shy, all daughters tend to transfer on to their relationships with men all the love, disappointment, dependence, and unresolved issues we experienced with our fathers.

We know only too well the stories in the Bible about fathers and daughters that confirm the image of fathers as authoritarian figures who take little to no notice of their daughters. Because a daughter was a father's property and his honor was tied to his ability to safeguard her chastity, whole chapters are given to stories about a father avenging the rape of his daughter (Jacob and Dinah), a fathers sacrificing his daughter's virginity and life in order to uphold his vow to God (Jepthah and his daughter), a father switching daughters on his son-in-law's wedding night in order to extend his son-in-law's service to him (Laban and Rachel and Leah); and a father too inebriated to care or notice his sexual advances to his spinster daughters (Lot and his daughters).

If our relationship as fathers and daughters were limited to the script bequeathed us in these stories, a daughter would be wise to fear and loathe the man she calls "Father." But that is not the case. There are other father-daughter stories in the Bible (e.g., Jairus and his daughter; Phillip and his four daughters); positive ones that can heal daughters wounded by fathers who turned them into objects, and heal fathers wounded by patriarchy which forbade them to see the world through a daughter's eyes.

While there's plenty in the story to make it yet another tragic father-daughter story, the story of Caleb and Achsah manages to rise above the tragic. Achsah figured out a way to tap into the side of her that was good and most like her father - her enthusiasm, her quick thinking, her ability to plan and to set a plan in motion, her gift of persuasion - and make it all work for her purposes. It's easy to overlook biblical stories about women such as Achsah, the Queen of Sheba, Leah, Huldah and others because they lack Hollywood scenes of divine intervention. What do we do with biblical stories where there's no grand moral clause, no redemptive moment seemingly, no bush burning to light the way? There is no Damascus road experiences where a voice from heaven booms from beyond with command and instruction. No angel appears in the nick of time to rescue us from ourselves. No prophet drops by with a timely word. Standing at a fork in the road, having to decide which course to take, women, like Achsah, the Queen of Sheba, Leah, Huldah, and others are left to decide based on what they know already about life, themselves, and God thus far. Could that be what preachers mean when they talk about "you have to know that you know that you know"?

There are those moments in your life when you're called upon to decide based on your walk with God heretofore, your life and your experiences as best as you understand them thus far. You're at a critical intersection in your life, a fork in the road, a shift inside. No more blaming your father and mothers for who you are or are not. The stars have lined up, heaven is on tip toes, ancestors are peering over your shoulders, you are staring back at you. Choose. Decide. Risk. Dare. Who will you be? These are the moments God designs, I believe, to help us discover what matters most. Will we remain wounded women, or will we use moments like these to draw on the best life has to offer to begin the journey to becoming strong in our broken places? For Caleb's daughter Achsah, the desert princess, the time came when she would have to figure out how to get past blaming her father for her plight as a daughter and woman, and discover how to find water in the desert.

Excerpted from Renita J. Weems' article "Dance With My Father" in THOSE PREACHING WOMEN (Vol. 4), ed. Ella Pearson Mitchell (Judson Press, 2004).