Father Wounds and Phil Collins: Finding God in the Unexpected

BY HEiDI PRAHL

Lover of Jesus, my family, really good coffee, and all things Chicago. I’m a living, breathing paradox.

At one point in my life, I took photos of people’s homes for a living. I was a real estate photographer with my own business. My days consisted of interacting with realtors who would hire me to take professional photos of their listings, then heading out into the field with my camera to said destinations. 

Every day was different, every home, every homeowner. Showing up on a stranger’s doorstep to photograph their homes can actually be a deeply personal experience. I saw many magazine-worthy homes and met some of the loveliest people. Sometimes they even shared their stories of personal heartbreak - forced to sell due to the death of a spouse, loss of their job, or a devastating divorce. 

As many stories as I collected from the homes I photographed, there was one particular time when my own personal story collided with a kind, unsuspecting homeowner.

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I know I’m certainly not the only adult woman who carries father wounds. I didn’t always recognize them as such, and I certainly did not on the day in question.

I’m happy to say my dad and I are in the process of working on a relationship now, but it wasn’t always that way. 

I don’t think either of us fully knows what happened to cause everything to unravel but that never stopped us from firing words of blame toward each other, like grenades lobbed over a fence, hoping to inflict as much damage as possible. 

Over the years, one thing had become painfully clear - I was not the daughter he wanted, and he was not the father I needed.

I never really knew my father that well. He was a private man, devoted to his job, a frequent traveler. He was often technically “there,” but not really involved. 

Looking back, I think I just had a deep-seated need for a father who saw me, accepted me, and sometimes made me feel special, someone who would step in and say “you can’t treat my daughter like this.” I’d never verbalized that, my wounds buried deep and my pride strong.

While I may not have known a great deal about my dad, the one thing I can hands down say for sure is that he loves music. I grew up next to stacks of albums from the likes of the Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. 

The soundtrack of my teen years came from the music of Phil Collins. I’m sure my dad listened to other artists at the time, but for some reason, his music stood out to me. It had an easiness about it, a softness, which starkly contrasted to my reality. 

I say that I inherited my dad’s love for music and that might be true. Music speaks to my soul in a way that very few things can, but I don’t know if it does the same for him. Good or bad, certain songs can quickly leave me hitchhiking down memory lane.

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It was a bright sunny day, but that’s really all I remember. I couldn’t tell you what the house looked like or the homeowner’s name. I showed up to take my photos, like I’d done hundreds of times. A seemingly kind older man opened the door and let me in. He asked if he could carry my heavy backpack full of gear inside.

He showed me the home, and I sized everything up as I’d also done hundreds of times: every light on - check, ceiling fans off - check, tv off- check. The place was photo-ready, so I got to work.

I moved from room to room, choosing the best angles, shutter clicking. There was soft music playing on the stereo -- Phil Collins.

The homeowner was exceptionally considerate, offering to move anything that might be in my way, asking if I needed anything -- a bottle of water? Anything? 

I finished up and offered to show him the photos I’d taken. He said he trusted that I knew what I was doing. He knew the photos would be great. I packed up my gear, which he offered to carry to my car, but I declined and left. 

It was just an ordinary day, but something about that appointment pierced my heart like an old festering wound had been found, given air, cleaned, and wrapped in a fresh bandage. 

For a few moments in time, a man who listened to Phil Collins had really seen me, wanted to look out for me, valued my time, my skill, and believed in me. He didn’t need to see the photos; he trusted they’d be good. 

Something about that encounter healed a part of the little girl inside of me. Certainly because of what happened, but I also realized that God saw that need in me and was very specific about answering it - Phil Collins and all. 

I never saw the man again, and I imagine he has no idea the impact he had on me. I don’t know if his house sold or remember the realtor who hired me. But what I do know is since that day, I’m forever on the lookout for how God might show up in ways I least expect. I now know that those tiny shards of our heart we never touch, lest we get cut, He sees them. Our hearts may have been shattered, but we have a Father who goes out of his way to restore it, picking up the pieces, carefully placing them where they belong, and setting everything like a broken bone on the mend. It is nothing short of a miracle if we will remember how much our Father cares for even the smallest details, trust the process, and keep expecting God to show up in the ordinary.

It’s hard to believe something so small could change so much, but that is the wonderful, upside down, the unexplainable economy of God. Never ever stop looking for how He may want to intercede in your life, even in your most secret broken places.