Equipping The Generations: An Explosion In Texas And The Meaning Of Fatherhood -- By: Grant Castleberry

Journal: Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry
Volume: JDFM 03:2 (Spring 2013)
Article: Equipping The Generations: An Explosion In Texas And The Meaning Of Fatherhood
Author: Grant Castleberry


Equipping The Generations:
An Explosion In Texas And The Meaning Of Fatherhood

Grant Castleberry

Grant Castleberry and his wife, GraceAnna, live in Louisville with their two daughters, AudreyKate and Evangeline. He serves as the student life coordinator at Southern Seminary and as a Captain in the Marine Corps. A native Texan and Aggie, Grant attends Kenwood Baptist Church and works as assistant editor and conference coordinator for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

It was late in the afternoon of September 23, 1986. I was two years old, and my dad had just taken off on a routine training exercise in his F-4 Phantom fighter jet. He was flying over the Atlantic Ocean, not far from our home in Beaufort, South Carolina, when his F-4 crashed into another F-4 during a dogfight maneuver. Both my dad, Captain Charles Kelly Castleberry, and his navigator, Major Christopher Brammer, were never seen again. Search and Rescue crews scoured the Eastern seaboard for days, but they were never able to locate my father.

Ever since that day, I have had a special place in my heart for the “fatherless” of this world, especially those who have experienced loss through traumatic circumstances. This ache for the fatherless was stirred up again on April 17, as the news aired the horrific events concerning the giant fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas. I was distraught to learn that a crew of firemen had been at the site, trying to put out the fire when the blast occurred. Two thoughts immediately came to my mind: Unless there had been a miracle, the firemen on site would not have survived the blast, and, at least some of those firemen were never again going to see their wives and children on this earth. It may have been a “routine” call for these trained professionals. Then, in an instant, it became a deadly tragedy. The lives of their loved ones would never be the same. Their children would be left, clinging to every possible memory of their fathers, but they would never again, on this side of eternity, see their dads’ faces or be able physically to talk to them.

Losing a father is unspeakably horrific for any child. The son has lost the one person primarily responsible to train him to be a man, and to help him through that process. The daughter has lost her provider, protector, and the man responsible for teaching her what it means to be cherished and valued as a woman. I believe this is one reason why God has such a special, tender heart for the fatherless and the widows of the world. David, by the Holy Spirit, writes in Psalm 68:5, “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.”

I have experienced this special fatherly love of ...

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