Billy Wilson
Chosen Books, 2012, 160 pp., $12.99
I don’t think those who sent me Father Cry: Healing Your Heart and the Hearts of Those You Love knew my story. I grew up without a dad since age 9 and have spent most of my ministry responding to the father cry of other young men such as myself. I was captured by Wilson’s description of his first and subsequent cries for love and acceptance through his life. It seems that fatherlessness is a like a pin on a digital heart map that never disappears. The hurt of fatherlessness becomes a permanent point in time for which we (the fatherless) constantly are being brought back to and departing from again, seeking healing and relief from the gash left there.
I do not see a headline in the near future reading: “Crisis: Too Many Fathers” or “Families too Strong in America,” which means a book such as this is never out of season. Wilson shares much of his experience of helping young ministers through his Empower21 Ministry, but he never strays too far from his own story. His passion should be one of our great missions in the 21st century. Youth ministry is listening to the cries of the fatherless, modeling the love of the Father, and being the prophetic voice of the Father in the lives of those kids with the permanent gash.
