Why?

Why did my father leave? Why did my mother ignore me? Why did my father violate me? Why did my mother ridicule me? Why? Why? Why? We can get stuck on that question.

It’s a common question. But the “why” questions are only the first layer. It’s not the deepest question. The deeper questions expose guilt and shame:

“Was I being punished?” “Did I do something so wrong that I deserved that treatment?” That’s guilt.

“What is wrong with me to be treated so badly?” “Am I defective?” That’s shame.

Those questions are harder to explore.We are so afraid that we deserved the abuse we received, we hesitate to ask the deeper questions.  We may feel like we did something wrong, wrong enough to deserve the pain. And, most of us who’ve been seriously hurt in childhood feel like something’s wrong with us.

Actually, those feelings are functional when we are children. If we understood, as a child, the evil in who we’ve been entrusted to and the emotionally dangerous milieu in which we moved, we’d be paralyzed with fright. If the people we depend on are streaked with evil, how will I survive? If my father can calmly destroy my sense of safety, what’s to say he won’t kill me? My survival is at stake, as a child. It is more functional to believe something is wrong with me than something is evil in my dad.

Mother and child Pictures, Images and Photos

In adulthood, though, the fears need to be explored and addressed. So that we can get to the truth. Because the truth, the answer to the “why?” is:  my mother spewed evil. My father was a conduit for Satan.
The truth: what we deserved is what every child deserves. To be nurtured, attended to, respected, trained, and taught. With kindness.

No one deserves to be left, ignored, rejected, laughed at. If we misbehave, we deserve kind, firm correction. If we struggle with schoolwork or friendships, we deserve kind, competent help.

Nothing is especially wrong with us that we deserved the abuse we got. That’s the truth that will help set us free. Shame is Satan’s lie. Don’t let Satan win.

Jesus, you have won the victory over guilt and shame. Please speak your truth to our feelings and give us grace to receive.

 

A Courageous Father

 

Last week, I wrote, “I wanted a father’s love.” Even at sixty years old, there is part of me that misses a good father and depictions of good fathering touch me. So I was touched by the stories of the men of the Courageous movie. Four cops and one laborer show how five fathers’ characters are changed or exposed after a tragedy. Sherwood Baptist’s fourth film follows an abandoning father, a distracted father, a crooked father, and two heroic, courageous fathers.

Courageous Poster Most of us had one of those kinds of fathers.  Many children rarely or never see their fathers. Some have criminal fathers. Others grew up with fathers whose attention was elsewhere even when they were home. Few of us have heroic fathers, fathers who reliably protected, provided, confronted and comforted us.

And yet, Father-God is a heroic father who wants to father each one of us. Do we believe that?  Our experiences with our first authorities shape our expectations of Father-God, the ultimate authority.  If you want to attach to God as a father, start with identifying what kind of father you had. Was he there? What kind of eye contact did he give you? Did he give you hugs? Were those hugs safe? How was his integrity? Did he do what he said he would do? Did he keep his promises?

Then, compare those answers to how you believe God deals with you. Is he walking beside you? Is he looking at you with eyes of compassion? Do you sit on the couch with his arm around you? Do you feel safe with him? Has he done what he promised he would do?

We want to believe God is good, good in every way and at all times. We affirm it intellectually, but do we know his goodness in our experience? Spiritual growth is that continual movement toward merging our heads and our hearts.

While it’s easy to become a Christian, to say the words, it’s not easy to go deep with God. Depth takes a relentless pursuit of our own hearts and of God’s heart. Depth, like fatherhood, takes courage.

Father, give us the courage to know ourselves and to know you.

 

Forgiveness, Yes. Trust, No.

Forgiving my father didn’t mean I trusted him. It didn’t mean I let my daughter sit on his lap. It didn’t mean I cuddled with him. Even in his old age, he made sexually inappropriate remarks. Though he was a generous, hardworking, and dependable man in many ways, I never knew what he might do or say. I felt oppressed and unsafe in his presence. I could not trust him to keep his hands to himself, nor to keep his words pure.

fence Pictures, Images and PhotosHence, I limited my time with him. I set boundaries against his sin. The matter-of-factness of those words belies years of deep conflict. I longed for a real reconciliation. I wanted a father’s love. In my adult life, I’d never tried to get him talk about what happened. For many years, he was just too powerful a figure. With him, I remained a small child.

However, as I grew larger in my own eyes, he grew smaller. Finally, at nearly forty years old, I wrote “the honest letter.” After expressing my thanks for many aspects of my upbringing, I named the abuse and speculated on his own pain that had been acted out on me in the abuse.  I ended with: “I wish you wanted to know me, Dad. I wish you’d ask my forgiveness for the sexual abuse. I wish you would, even now, face your own pain.”

An excerpt from Trading Fathers, my memoir, continues the story:  “After two weeks, he wrote a two word response:  ‘I’m sorry.’ But he wasn’t sorry enough to engage in real discussion. He wasn’t sorry enough to explore his own motivation. He wsn’t sorry enough to hear my pain….I had done my part to try to reconcile. I’d exposed my heart to him. In response, he gave me two words. Admittedly, they were the necessary words. But they were not sufficient. Two words were not enough to build on. I’d often fantasized a warm relationship with him. Now I could deal with the reality. My father would not pay the price.”

Is there someone in your life who you have forgiven but don’t trust? What is that like for you?

Father-God, thank you for paying the price for relationship with us.