A Father Who Won't Leave

     Father’s Day is three days away! For many, that brings joy; for some it brings sorrow.  Some fathers built strong, solid foundations in their children; and some built a cracked, damaged foundation.  For me, Father's Day is always an opportunity to ponder my fathers and the impact they each played in my life. Yes, I did say fathers. Just as I have had many mother figures in my life, I have had several fathers; not as many as the mothers though. I had one grandfather I only met once, one grandfather I liked but never was invested, and one grandfather I adored. When it came to father’s, I had a birth father, an adopted father, a step father, and a father in law. I learned something of life from all of them but I am only going to talk about a few. The first father role I had was my birth father. It is the relationship with the most confusing, mixed up, and hurtful feelings. My birth father was 17 when he got married and had a baby. As you can figure, the marriage did not last. He went on to college and could not afford child support and when I was 3 years old he gave up his parental rights. Though I remained very close to his parents, I did not see him again until I was a Freshman in high school. Since then, I think I have seen him seven times. We have written back and forth probably 10 times. I will say that today, our relationship is better than ever; not that it is good, but it is better. I met with him at a restaurant back in September and I have spoken to him four times since. The biggest issue that keeps our relationship from being what it should be is that his wife isn’t very receptive to me being a part of their lives and I have an adult brother and an adult sister that does not know about me! It is very confusing! My feelings are also very confusing. I have worked hard at not having bitterness and anger in my heart. I wanted to keep a pure heart and keep the responsibility and accountability of the relationship on him. I also have hurt the person who is suppose to love me and the person that says he does love me; yet only shows a minuscule amount of behavior which demonstrates any kind of love for me. When I was younger and would visit my grandmother, who lived in the same town as he did, I would wish that he would find out I was in town and come to see me.  He never did.  In fact, I found out later that he always knew I was in town and purposefully stayed away.  I think this hurt more than anything else he has done, nor have I ever experienced a stronger feeling of rejection. I wish I could just say he isn’t a responsible man, but he is a superintendent of one of the largest school districts in Arkansas. He is responsible and he is a good father to his other two children. Knowing I am the rejected one has given me the struggle of dealing with insecurity and inferiority. I am sure that these feelings show themselves in my life more than I want but God is faithful to help me stay open to forgive my father and open to God to heal me.
     Not only has God healed me, and continues to heal me, He has shown me that He is not anything like my birth father. He has never forgotten me, or abandoned me, or said He loves me but yet doesn't back it up with action. He has never loved his other children more than me, and He isn’t faithful to everyone and everything else except me. It is so easy to transfer your hurt feelings and disappointments from your earthly father to your Heavenly Father but God has taught me not to do that. I rob myself of a healthy and intimate relationship with God when I do. He has also taught me not to get caught up with what I don’t have from my earthly father, but to get caught up in praising Him for what I do have in Him.
     What kind of relationship do you have with your earthly father? How has it affected your relationship with your Heavenly Father? What are you focusing on? What you don’t have in your earthly father, you do have in your Heavenly Father!  If you really understand who your Heavenly Father is and the blessings He gives His children, how can you feel you need more? I have learned that He is all I need! Do you believe He is all you need?

Be content with what you have. Since God assured us, “I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you,” we can boldly quote, God is there, ready to help; I’m fearless no matter what.
Hebrews 13:5b-6a