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This Father’s Day, God Remains a Father to the Labeled

This Father’s Day, God Remains a Father to the Labeled

Last updated on: June 17, 2026 at 12:00 pm by Lee Ann B. Marino

This Father’s Day, God Remains a Father to the Labeled 2026-04-29T16:38:56-04:00 Lee Ann B. Marino

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Several years ago, I preached a message on Father’s Day titled “A Father to the Labeled.” I’ve preached it a few different ways over the years, detailing it from different angles. Its inspiration lied in finding my own place in church, complicated by my own nonexistent relationship with my biological father. Looking for answers – especially that to encourage others with stories much like mine – I discovered why we often refer to God as Father. It’s not just because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside. God – as our Father – and as found as such in Scripture – is an important part of the way we understand our relationship with God (and as distinct from other deities).

Child with their hand in an adult man's hand

Photo by Liane Metzler on Unsplash

Psalm 68:5-6

Psalm 68:5-6 is a key text exploring God as Father:

A Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
    is God in His holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families,
    He leads out the prisoners with singing;
    but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land. (NIV)

Labels in ancient times

This passage doesn’t talk about family – and fatherhood – in the traditional context. Fatherless, widow, lonely, and prisoner were all ancient “labels” assigned by society as markers of who someone was and how they might turn out. Being fatherless in ancient society was serious. It often meant one had no land inheritance and no real family identity. Even in situations where a father died and his land was (or would be) transferred to heirs, odds were good that:

Another male relative might step in to seize the property
Property would be sold to cover debts or for basic survival
If an heir was eligible, they too might be sold into slavery because a female relative mother was simply unable to care for them.

Fate was worse for girls than boys, who might have been married off young to the highest bidder, sold into sexual slavery, or forced into any number of situations awful beyond comparison. Widows had no status in society. If there were no male relatives willing to care for them, they often became destitute beggars or prostitutes. Being lonely was an indication one didn’t have a family. Prisoners were seen as the worst of the worst in society.

For God to identify as a Father to the fatherless, a defender of the widow, set the lonely in families, and leading out prisoners in a joyful song indicated that God was there for the labeled of society – the people who, due to circumstances and identifications beyond their control – just as much as He was there for anyone else.

Remembering life with an absent father

As Father’s Day approaches, I remember what it was like to be a “labeled” child. I did have a father, and I knew who he was. From the time I was about seven onward, I didn’t have him in my life. It was a hard situation, one that was harder in some ways than if I just didn’t know who he was. I had to accept at a young age who he was, and that such as he was, he wasn’t father material. Still, when you are young, you look around and want to have what you think everyone else has. It was easy for me to think everyone else had a father (everyone didn’t). Not having him around made me feel evident and obvious, especially given this happened over 30 years ago.

In those days, we didn’t have sensitive instructors who considered inclusion of “different” students in the room. I remember sitting in third grade art class when the assignment of the day was to make Father’s Day cards using card stock and oil-based crayons. We cut the card so the front would look like a shirt with a tie on it. There I sat, with no one to make a card for. The substitute teacher tried to get me to make it for another male relative, which I didn’t have. I had all sisters, I didn’t know my one male cousin, I had only met my uncle once and didn’t know where he was, and all my grandfathers died. It was never a suggestion to make a card for my single-parent mother, so the substitute told me, “Just do whatever you want.”

A long-term experience

This was only one of many incidents that would come to pass over the years. I felt labeled and judged based on one aspect of my life. It had nothing to do with me or anything I’d done. Still, the way people behaved made me feel like I was less-than-human because of it. Oh sure, people tell you it’s not your fault, but they certainly treat you like it is. They use it as an excuse to brush off your feelings, blaming every unseemly thought or outburst on that singular issue. It was a convenient way to avoid giving credibility to that you do feel certain ways about other things (maybe even something they did). I was seen as irrational, even when I was perfectly sane. I also was accused of wanting things that weren’t for me to have.

Then there were the attitudes of pity and shame, indicating that if I wanted to aspire to something in my life, I would never get anywhere. I didn’t have a cushy, perfect two-parent household to launch me into success. I wasn’t seen as “normal.” Anything outside of “normal” doesn’t fit the visual construct we desire this world to have, thus it doesn’t fit the greater narrative. People would rather pretend it doesn’t exist.

Which is why, even to this day, God is still a “Father to the labeled.”

God for the single parent

If God is a “Father to the fatherless,” that also means He is there for someone else, too: the single parent. If someone is “fatherless,” it doesn’t necessarily mean they are without a mother, as well. Have we ever considered why the Bible talks about God as Father so much more than He talks about and reiterates characteristics reflecting of a mother? (Those are in there, by the way; we just don’t pay much attention to them.) It’s because even within the constructs of history, fatherlessness was far more common than “motherlessness” (which isn’t even a proper word).

Men went off to war, fought in battles, served in militias, were more susceptible to die from pandemics or illnesses, to leave their families as was custom with divorce laws, were more likely to travel alone and die at sea or in some other travel-related death, and to leave home to hunt or for some other purpose and not return due to environmental conditions. Yes, women died, but when women died, men were more likely to remarry (although circumstances arose, which we will discuss momentarily). Women were more likely to be left alone to care for children in difficult and dire circumstances. This tells us the need for fatherhood, for the image of a stable and consistent Father, One Who would never leave, no matter the conditions or issues at hand, and no matter the label, would love and care for those who needed Him most.

The origins of Father’s Day

The man who inspired Father’s Day was a single father. In the words of his daughter, Sonora Smart Dodd, “He was both father and mother to me and my brothers and sisters.” William Jackson Smart was a Civil War veteran and father to 14 children through two marriages, both of which resulted in widowhood. The man whose work and legacy so inspired his daughter was a single parent twice in his life, as well as the father of a blended family. He shouldered the responsibility of first his five children with his first wife, three children from his wife’s previous marriage, and six children in his second marriage.

A 60-year Father’s Day tribute

Inspired by her father, Sonora Dodd petitioned for 60 years to see Father’s Day as a national holiday. The holiday we see as a sea of ties, golf clubs, and coffee mugs started out to honor the memory of a single father. He lost two wives, handled the responsibility of six children, and lovingly navigated the world for a family labeled as “motherless.”

In all my years of research on holidays, I never knew that Father’s Day tied back to a single father. In my opinion, these holidays are for single parents, the ones we often criticize and condemn on days like this.

As controversial as my choice to do so might be, on both Mother’s and Father’s Day, I wish all single parents a great tribute, because they do the work of two parents when they are only one. It’s simple enough to say “they already have their day.” They also have a situation where they have to try, to the best of their ability, to fill the needs and realities of a dual role, one that they walk with as much thought and planning as is possible. Single parents don’t have a second partner to thank on their opposite-gender specific holiday, because the only one who is there, to do that work, is them.

The label of single parent

So why don’t we hear more about these inspiring single parents? They aren’t a part of our societal narrative. Father’s Day commercials, ads, even church services never, ever once mention single dads or moms. The adorable little kids giving dad the ugliest tie imaginable or an ashtray when he doesn’t smoke are always shown with mom off to the side, smiling and proud of this perfect family moment.

Single parents don’t sell products, they don’t sell ties or ashtrays or greeting cards. Instead, they scream “labeled,” a negative message that someone isn’t doing right by their kids (no matter what they do). We often view single parents as failures, for no good reason at all. They make society feel uncomfortable (and maybe even a little guilty). Too many judge them and their children. Many see them as being under a curse, doing the unspeakable.

Hope for the labeled

This, however, is simply not reality. All the way back in the Bible, even God took note of the labels of society:

The fatherless
Those whose mothers die or abandon them
Widows
Orphans
Those without families
Even those in prison

He calls them His own. That means if God calls out to the fatherless, He must also call out to that single parent, the man or woman who has no spouse or has lost their spouse, due to whatever circumstances exist in their lives. That means on this Father’s Day, and every day, God hears you, too, and has stepped in to make sure that your child will, by His grace, receive more than enough.

To all the labeled children: you always have Someone to celebrate with you, even if it feels like no one else understands. To all the single parents out there: Happy Mother’s Day, Happy Father’s Day, and happy every other day in between. Our heavenly Father is here for you. Here is a song for all the labeled, reminding us that God is our Father, answer to our dreams, comforter to the lonely, and the lifter of our heads.

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About Lee Ann B. Marino

Dr. Lee Ann B. Marino, Ph.D., D.Min., D.D. (”The Spitfire”) is “everyone’s favorite theologian” leading Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z as apostle of SAFE Ministries. Her work encompasses study and instruction on leadership training and development, typology, Pneumatology, conceptual theology, Ephesians 4:11 ministry, and apostolic theology. She is author of over thirty-five books, host of the top twenty percentile podcast Kingdom Now, and serves as founder and overseer of Sanctuary International Fellowship Tabernacle - SIFT and Chancellor of Apostolic Covenant Theological Seminary. Dr. Marino has over twenty-five years of experience in ministry, leadership, counseling, mentoring, education, and business. You can read more about the author here.

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