With Father's day just behind us, thoughts of my Dad have been on my heart the past few weeks. I kept feeling like I needed to share the story of how God healed my heart and my "Daddy" issues in ways I couldn't have imagined. I am finishing up my last weeks of school, trying to running a direct sales business, investing with a group of like minded folks to point a big gun at social issues...generally super busy as usual. The other day, this popped up in my time hop, and I was reminded that I needed to share the story.
I couldn't believe that it has been four years already. I had a chance to reflect last night on the work that God has done in my heart in those past four years. Let me start by sharing parts of a letter I sent out to "my people" asking for prayer in Nov. 2011. It tells the first part of the story.
"Somewhere around June of 2010, God started working on knocking down the wall around my heart labeled 'Dad'. My Mom and Dad were divorced when I was 10 months old. I didn't know my Dad growing up and didn't meet him until I was 21. I didn't really talk to him at that point though, as the walls were up and I was full of anger. Over the past 2 years, God would slowly reveal things to me that caused me to look at my Dad differently than I previously had. Nothing too profound, just an awareness that what I thought was the truth, probably wasn't. I felt like God was asking me to reach out to my Dad. I am stubborn, and don't often do what God tells me to right up front. I have to fight with Him for a while. My Grandpa had abdominal surgery in Nov. 2010 where it was discovered that he had colon cancer. The night of his surgery, I stayed with him, by myself, at the hospital all night. That was the best and most healing night I'd ever spent with my Grandpa. We talked A LOT about my childhood and my family. He revealed things to me that I had never known. My Grandpa talked quite a bit about my Dad. I could feel God nudging me that night, reminding me that He wanted me to reach out to my Dad. I ignored Him. I wasn't ready to face that demon just yet. The next few months were spent holding my Grandpa's hand while he passed away.
That was a life changing time in my life. God kept working on my heart and I kept telling Him to leave me alone. In mid-May, I was sitting outside at the picnic table having lunch with my lunch friends. A friend who rarely comes to lunch joined us. On the way back to the building, she says, "You've really been on my heart lately, Holly Waugh". I don't think I have many friends who can just say my first name. Now, when she said this, my heart just seized up. That is because God consistently uses this friend to speak into my life when I am trying my best to ignore Him. I like to pretend that I am not really hearing God and that I am just making up the things He wants me to do. So here she is, getting ready to tell me about myself, so I just hold my breath. She turns to me and says, "God want to heal your Daddy issues, all you have to do is ask Him." Why it still surprises me every time she is dead on, I will never know. She said a lot of other wise things and I just kept trying to play stupid. I kept asking her which Daddy. I have had 2 step-dads so I wanted to be sure. Eventually I pressed her and she said that it had to do with a sense of loss and absence. So now I knew that I knew that God wanted me to reach out to my Dad. I didn't want to..so I didn't...and it ate at me. It's one thing to be disobedient to God when you can convince yourself it's not Him and it's a whole other thing to KNOW that it's God and choose not to obey. Towards the end of June, I was at church worshipping my face off. That's when God likes to convict me and talk to me. The next thing I know, I am sitting with my head in my hands bawling my eyes out. I finally said, "Alright God, I surrender...Your will...not mine. I have to believe that good will come of this or You wouldn't have me do it..so Okay!!" I felt God say, "See...you've been worrying about this promotion that you want and I won't give it to you because if you can't be obedient in the things I ask of you, why would I give you more responsibility." I felt such conviction and I apologized to God and promised that I would be obedient in what I felt He was calling me to do. As I walked out of church that night, I received a text from my boss letting me know he'd secured the final approval to move me into my new position. I just smiled, knowing that God was in control.
I wrote a letter to my Dad and put it in the mail the first week of July. I basically just told him about myself and apologized to him for the anger I'd felt towards him. I let him know that I forgave him for making the decisions he did regarding his involvement in my life. That I realized that there were circumstances that I didn't know about and that in the end, it didn't really matter. I set no expectations but provided him a way to contact me if he felt like wanted to. I sent the letter, and then I waited...and I waited...and then the devil started attacking me. The devil beat me down and said things like "see, you aren't even worth him contacting you", "you really ARE worth nothing", "see, God doesn't care about you".
I kept thinking about the story Pastor Michael told us one day about how lions take the oldest broken down lion with the loudest roar and have him get on one side of his prey while the rest of the pride crouch down on the other side. The old broken down lion is like the devil, whose job it is to just roar really loud and scare you away from where you are trying to go and as you run away, you run right into the rest of the pride who are waiting to eat you. So I kept thinking about how PMC told me that when that stupid old lion is roaring at me....I should run right at him because he's broken down and can't hurt me. So that's what I did...I ran right at the devil. I kept telling him that I did matter to God, and that God WAS in control..and I surrounded myself with some wise people. Poor Leanna had to help me tackle the devil. She told me, "Perhaps, this isn't about you..perhaps your Dad needed the letter more than you needed to write it." Profound, I say. When I could get the focus off me and realize that maybe my Dad had been living with the guilt that he needed to be released from, it made it easier.
Out of the blue, I got a message from my cousin on FB asking if I wanted to go have dinner with her and her sister and my Aunt. This Aunt would be my Dad's sister. I hadn't seen them for 15 years but I knew God wanted me to go meet with them. I was super nervous but that dinner was exactly what I needed. I found out that my Dad had some mental illness and was in an assisted living apartment. I heard a lot of stories that contradicted things I had been told my whole life. My immediate reaction was to be angry at my Mom. I had to pray hard about that as I didn't want my forgiveness and healing for my father to transfer to anger at my Mom. God got me through it as He always does. He helped me to see that my Aunt's truth and my Mom's truth are different than God's truth. So that brings me to today.
I apologize for the length of this e-mail as I rarely spill my heart out. My cousin contacted me last week and let me know that my Dad would like to have dinner with me. My Aunt Betty is hosting dinner at her house and my cousins and my Dad will be there. Angie, (my cousin) let me know that I didn't have to come and there wasn't any pressure at all, she just wanted to put the invitation out there if it was something I felt comfortable with. My immediate reaction was "NO..I can't do this right now." Then God ever so gently let me know that I need to go. So on Tuesday of this week, I am going to have dinner with my Dad...and I am scared. I don't quite know what I am scared of..but my stomach has been flopping ever since I told my Aunt I was coming. I need prayer...lots and lots of prayer. I think this is the next step in the healing process for me. I am so grateful for the healing that God has already provided to me and I am equally grateful that He uses the experiences and the healing from my childhood to speak into the lives of other hurting people. My specific prayers are as follows: 1. That I would have peace throughout dinner. 2. That conversation wouldn't be strained. 3. That I would say what God would have me say to bring healing to my Dad as well. 4. That nothing I hear causes bitterness and anger towards others. 5. Prayer of thanks for my Aunt and cousins who love me and are willing to facilitate dinner...and for making dinner gluten-free..and prayer for anything else you are lead to pray for."
The dinner happened...and it was good. There were a couple of rough bits that took my breath away..but more on that later.
I could tell you that my obedience (however reluctant) was rewarded with total restoration in my relationship with Dad...but that would be a lie. We only talked one more time after this picture was taken. He died in September of last year.
You may be asking yourself why you have wasted your time reading through this super long blog post just to find out that my story didn't have a happy ending. Well...my friends...that's why I decided to share it...it does have a happy ending..just not the one I had expected.
When you grow up without knowing who your Dad is...you come up with a million questions that you would ask him if you could. I was lucky enough to finally get the opportunity to ask some of those questions to him. I didn't always get the answer that I wanted and I'm not sure that any of the answers that I received were the truth but I got the opportunity to ask. I got to learn a little about his life. I got to learn a little about his marriage to my Mom (from His perspective only, of course). I got a lot of things...but do you know best thing I got?? I got the realization and awareness that my Dad walking out on us had absolutely nothing to do with me.
God had given me the greatest gift. I realized that, for whatever reason, my father was incapable of taking ownership of his own actions. I realized that my father had paid the price for his decisions. I realized that the little girl inside of me who had been longing to be loved by her father, was pretty okay now and didn't really need him. I realized that the healing inside of me had only happened because I had a heavenly Father who loved me so unconditionally that He would let me hurt if it meant I would heal. I allowed myself to feel all of the feelings, and having brought all of the hurt and bitterness out into the light, God was able to heal it all.
I am not sure why God is having me share this story. It's a repeat for some of you, but I have to believe that someone out there needed to hear it. Needed to know that healing can come to those hurting places deep in your spirit. Those hurts that you keep to yourself because no one would understand it anyway. God understands. In the words of my very wise friend, "God wants to heal your "fill in the blank" issues, all you have to do is ask Him."
