I wonder what God would say if I asked Him...if this, my life, is how it was all meant to be. Is the past what is in the script? I mean, I know it can't be changed...it is what it is...but, since He knew all that would happen even as He was hanging the sun in its place...is this all as it was meant to be? Maybe, maybe not. I know that He knew...He gave me a way out either way. Other's made the choice not to love me. As sad as that is and as painful a reality it is...there was a way out. Certainly not an easy way...but a way from the darkness into the light. God was always in control. He never let them kill me...both physically and emotionally. I still breath, though some days I feel like any breath brings pain...as if my body should be black and blue...but there is life still. It hurts to know my parents thought nothing of me. It hurts to realize I wasn't enough to make them change or choose me...to love me. But it was never my fault. They made choices and I am separate from that...now. Don't ever think I didn't let it take me over. Don't ever think I didn't let them harden me. I believed every lie my mother told me. I believed I was what little she thought of me. I believed my father wouldn't want me as I was. No one could penetrate those lies because it was much safer to believe a lie. It is safer to live the lie than to ever have to take a chance...to have hope and trust. I guess I almost let them kill me.
My father, the man with half the credit for my existence and I have never seen his face. There is an emptiness still because there is so much I do not know. To all those who have sat with me in "recovery" know that I never speak of him much. I would no sooner let you stand on an actual open would either. My father's abandonment cuts me deep. It brings as much shame as it brings pain. I often wonder if people think that I must not be worth anything if my own father saw nothing worth sticking around. I know it seems ridiculous but I grew up with that as if it just...was. I ache to know what it must feel like to be a daughter...let alone to say, "this is my father". What do those words taste like? It must feel so comforting, so peaceful to point to a man and know he stood over you during your most tender years. What does it feel like to be a daughter...to be looked at with pride? No one I know can say, "she is mine!" about me. I know God does...but oh to hear an other's audible voice say to me, "My daughter, I am so proud of you." I feel such a great great sense of loss. A stronger person might say that all this is what God will say to them when they reach Heaven, and I know that He will...sweet Jesus! But I would be lying if I said that I don't want these things here on earth. I want my mother to love me. I want my father to come back and just...hold on to me. I want to sit in his lap (who cares if I am over 30 and a mother myself!!) and listen to him breath and hear him tell me...that he is proud of me. Why do other people get this and not me? I sometimes walk through a day and do what needs to be done. I sit with my husband and my children and I think...everyone near me is someones child. Everyone near me sits (or has sat) in their father's lap and will never know a life without it. I feel so alone sometimes. Evan has family, good and strong family scattered all over. I just don't. It is funny how in the same instant I can feel alone but so grateful to have what I have.
I have been thinking about forgiveness and what that might mean. I think of the things my husband has had to forgive me for and I know that it would ruin me if he let those things keep him from me. If I only function in our marriage because of his grace...should I not give grace in return? If I only know love and truth and eternity because God has cast my sins as far from me as the east is from the west...how can I hold onto such things?
I have to say that I don't really know what this forgiveness would look like. As you can tell, I still hurt over what was done. But that pain comes from missing out on what every human being should receive from their parents, right? I don't think I could ever say that I am glad my parents didn't love me. It may always make me sad because I missed out on knowing that kind of love and being cherished. I would have to mourn a great loss. Am I supposed to not feel that pain anymore in order to say "I forgive you"? I would have to forgive my father for leaving me behind with a woman who beat me. I would have to forgive my father for not being there to give me away on my wedding day. I would have to admit that he isn't coming back. Can I do that? Can I let that go? Can I accept that on this earth...for the rest of my life I will never be a daughter? Can I go another 50 years with the spots of my father and even my mother just being...vacant? I want to be obedient and give grace because I have received it, but what does that look like?
