A few weeks ago was Father’s Day….
This is day that has always been a struggle for me. I grew up without a Dad (which is definitely a key part in my testimony).
At training camp we went through many different sessions, one of them being about forgiveness… wow did this one hit a sore spot in my heart. I was still bitter towards my Dad and unwilling to forgive him for what he had done. I was drinking poison hoping it would hurt him.
Once I finally decided to listen to Gods voice (that had been there all along) He said, “You need to forgive him”. I felt my heart break into pieces and crumble when I heard this. Forgiveness hurts. That day, I prayed with my leader to be able to forgive my dad. There was a lot of pain there, and it was buried deep deep below my surface. Jess, my leader, started prophesying over me and said that she saw how hard this forgiveness was going to be, but that it was going to be completely worth it and that there would be true beauty at the end of this long journey.
Now, after Father’s Day, my leader challenged me again to sit with the Lord and process all of the feelings I had toward my father by physically writing them out. I was dreading having to do that, so I put it off for an entire week. Finally, I carved out an afternoon and just sat with the Lord, grieving over the fact that I didn’t have an earthly father that raised me. I wrote down all of the feelings that I had toward him and how growing up without him made me feel. Here are a couple of those feelings:
– Unloved
– Unwanted
– A burden
– Betrayed
These are some tough things to deal with. Those words were some deep wounds. However, the Lord showed me healing and forgiveness through the movie “The Shack” ( spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it). In this movie the man was carrying his little girls dead body and just repeating the words “I forgive you” “I forgive you” “I forgive you” over and over again. The Lord told him to forgive the man who killed his little girl, again and again and again until it got easier.
I was then remind of the verse in Matthew 18:21-22, “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
Again, I can’t tell you how hard it was for me to forgive my dad. But I can tell you that I know the Lord will be faithful through this forgiveness journey. He will carry that burden for me. I don’t have to walk on my own. He is leading me and I am following him
I’m trusting in his plan for my life, whatever it may be. Right now he is teaching me how to walk in forgiveness. I know that I will have to sit down and forgive my dad again and again, but I know that this small step will lead to beauty and reliance on the Lord.
