Adventures in Odyssey showed this woman what a godly father looks like

When Elizabeth* was five years old, she and her sisters were gifted a copy of Adventures in Odyssey, including six audio cassettes. “I just fell in love with it,” she says. “Mr. Whittaker was this figure of what a man is supposed to be like. This is how an earthly father is. I think that God just gave me this thing that kept me grounded when I didn't have this male role model in my father. We learned at Sunday school and church about how people should behave and treat each other. My mom was very kind and she really tried to exude the fruits of the spirit, but my dad didn't.”

Elizabeth remembers her father not being particularly loving, nurturing or present, so she and her sisters all competed for his love and approval. “None of us got sort of the love and affection that we needed by any means,” she recalls. This caused much tension in the household and a strained dynamic between them.

When she turned on Adventures in Odyssey, though, she found safety and stability as a child. Mr. Whittaker modelled godly characteristics, but his character also helped heal how Elizabeth viewed God. “However you see your earthly father, I think as a kid, that's how you see your heavenly Father,” Elizabeth explains. “There were times when I put God to the side and was like, ‘I don't want you in my life because I don't need another dictator.’ And it took me a long time to really separate that and make that connection that my heavenly Father is not the same.”

Throughout the following decades, Adventures in Odyssey and specifically the character of Mr. Whittaker showed Elizabeth the traits and qualities of a godly husband and father. “Based on my experiences as a child and some of the hurts that happened with my father, statistically I should not be married with a loving husband who is the polar opposite of my father,” she explains. “I have a husband who is very loving, who is present, who loves his daughters and his wife. So, there was always God in the background saying, don't settle; this is how people treat each other, even in friendships.”

What were the characteristics Elizabeth most admired in Mr. Whittaker? “He was gentle. His responses were always in love. He was slow to anger. He was patient. If the kids had problems, he gave them time. He sat down with them and he saw them for who they were.”

Elizabeth points to a particular episode that features the song “It Is Well With My Soul,” her favourite hymn, which brought comfort during her first pregnancy. Days before she was due to deliver their first child, she and her husband learned their daughter would be born with extreme complications. They went to church that Sunday, both sick with anxiety and worry, but as soon as they entered the building, the congregation was in the middle of singing the hymn close to Elizabeth’s heart because of that Adventures in Odyssey episode. “I knew in that moment that God was telling me it's okay,” she recalls.

While her relationship with her siblings is still strained, Elizabeth credits years of counselling that allowed her to get to a point in her relationship with her father that enabled her to see his side of things: “I was trying to look deeper into his life to understand that there was probably his own traumas that had him react the way that he did to me and my siblings.”

Because of generous donors who support Focus on the Family Canada, people like Elizabeth can discover Adventures in Odyssey in precarious seasons of childhood and find biblical truth that carries them into adulthood as well. 

“I have been so faithful to Adventures in Odyssey because it's this thing that God put into my life that he used to teach me and to grow me and give me a sense of grounding when I lived in a lot of chaos,” she says. “The town of Odyssey is sort of like Pleasantville, in that everything sort of ties up in like a 30-minute show. But at the same time, the characters really struggle, and they're dealing with big issues, which really draws you in because you're like, oh, that's me. There's that identifying piece that's so important because you realize you're not alone. These characters are facing things like me.”

*Name changed to protect privacy