Fatherlessness Impacted My Faith

Several years ago I felt the pressing need to share my story, but I have a lot of experience in a lot of areas; dealt with infertility, adoption, drug abuse, parenting kids with abandonment issues, processing my own abandonment and abuse as a child, living without my dad in my life, homeschooled for 25 years,... so I had all these different categories that I felt like I had some knowledge in and I wanted to share.

I knew God was telling me to share my journey, but I didn't know where to start? I was so overwhelmed...I asked Him, "Where Lord,...do I start?" Can you just start writing a memoir with no direction? "Hey, in the beginning was me!" and see where that takes you?

I spent hours, if not days, alone with God asking about this. He brought another Christian woman into my life. And she said, "Where has God shown himself the most to you? Where have you found the most redemption from Him...where He has made it quite clear He's your Healer...and supported and encouraged you? Where has He's been a real father to you?"

And that was easy.

The scars that He had healed the most was in my fatherlessness. My abandonment by my own father.

The word discard (or to be discarded) is a verb; the action of disposing of something, casting it aside. That sums up the way that I felt most of my life. If you are the something that has been cast out or rejected, you're discarded, right?

And those of us who've experienced that abandonment from our fathers are wounded to the point of not only feeling pushed aside and forgotten. We make assumptions regarding our worth...our value...and if impacts just about every decision we make. We tend to have horrible self esteem. This disbelief that we are wanted and loved and cherished guides our morality. We question why or even IF God wants us.

I had given control of my mind, my heart, my thoughts...my life to my earthly father because he had chosen to discard his children. The lies that I believed and internalized about myself played a huge role in the development. It fostered self-abuse and immoral and consequential life choices. Some of those consequences are shaping my life even today, as I approach 60 years of age.

And in my damaged discarded mind, I believed my father's absence was probably my fault. Maybe I just wasn't enough to make him want to stay.

The worst part about having such a poor excuse for an earthly father is that I assumed my heavenly Father...was just like him.

Uncaring, neglectful, oblivious to my needs, unloving. Mostly, I believed that God was absent.

When I was almost two, my mother and my father divorced which was far less common in 1967. My mother was beautiful but innocent. She believed she could provide enough love and goodness in their marriage for both of them.

My father was a talented musician, played the drums, played guitar. He was a great singer. And I have been told he was a studio guitar player, playing on country albums back in the sixties. If you look on the back of album covers and they actually show the studio players, you might find his name listed.

Like many musicians I suppose, he was prone to drug abuse and alcohol abuse. He was unfaithful to my mother. And I mean terribly unfaithful. I have been told I have anywhere from five to nine biological half siblings through different women that he impregnated during those extremely weird years in the 60s. And so and I met some of them.

I have met some of my half siblings. I was really tempted to blame my mother for getting away from dear ol' Dad. And when I got older and I understood just exactly what she was escaping from. I was grateful she allowed me to make up my own mind...but after meeting him, I was a little surprised she held back. I know I couldn't have done that. But she never bad mouthed my father to me. She allowed me to decide for myself and when I got older, told me how to connect is I wanted to pursue a relationship with him. It was obvious to me that my father really didn't want me.

And even though my mother made every effort to keep my grandparents on his side of the family involved, telling them where we were each time we moved, they never really tried. I think they must have done some math at some point and sent me a card for my high school graduation. That was one of only two times I'd heard from them...in 16 years.

Once I was in my 20's, I got in touch with him during a family anniversary party that had been advertised in the local paper. After that, I can count on both hands the number of times that I saw him before his death a few years ago. And each encounter with him was my idea, not his.

So I'm pretty sure he didn't mind. not being around, right? So what was the impact that that made? Well, for me, it meant self doubt sexual promiscuity. I was given to excesses like drugs and alcohol. I was given to the excess of food. I craved attention from all the wrong attention givers. I was desperate for some sort of explanation or resolution about why my father didn't want me.

Most importantly, I blamed God. Blamed him for my abandonment, the abuse I suffered as a child, the lifestyle I had chosen as a modern day "harlot." I constantly asked him why. I was angry, unforgiving toward God, thinking my immorality was a way of getting even for God allowing me to be abandoned.

Finally, after years of feeling sorry for myself and looking for love in all the wrong places, living with "victim" mentality and having survived abusive relationships, drug abuse and even thoughts of suicide....after years of that...I found this one little verse that changed it all.

Psalm 68:5 calls God "the Father to the fatherless." At that point, He was no longer just my Savior, but He became my Daddy.

And though it may be hard to understand, years of wrestling with God had shown me that perhaps I was actually blessed to have the earthly father that I had...and greatly blessed that he was not a part of my life. I am convinced that not having my father in my life likely spared me from experiencing more pain than I went through at the hands of other "bad actors" in my life. I think it was easy for me, especially as I got a little bit older...and after the abuse...to believe that maybe...if my dad had been around, he would have protected me. Maybe he would have wanted to watch over me better and make sure I was protected. After meeting and spending time with him, I realized that was highly unlikely...there's no way of knowing.

Sister, I know this is hard to believe (and I go into much more detail in my Bible Study, Discarded: a daughter's journey to reclaim freedom and forgive the father that left her behind) but I promise you that there is a place of finding gratitude and peace...no matter how ugly your past.

So don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it was okay for my father to be who or what he was. God obviously tells men that they're supposed to guide their children and and love their children and raise them properly. In essence, they should live like God does.

My dad never did, and maybe yours didn't either. They should have, and my message is simply that Jesus can and wants to equip us to forgive and even love our abusers and our fathers...even if they are our abusers. God can even make us grateful for a past that has haunted us, freeing us from the bondage that our past has over us.

We can see our suffering as a means to an end, being made more like Jesus. It's not the easiest journey to take and it means effort and openness to grow through it. It's a commitment to strive toward a closer walk with your heavenly Father who really wants to be your daddy.

So let me reiterate...I am not a pastor. I am not a counselor. I'm not a mental health professional. I am not world's leading authority on biblical life application and spiritual health. I'm not. I'm just a broken, discarded daughter. And I'm sharing a message with you built around the feelings and the behaviors that I experienced personally and the healing that God was able to provide.

It's my personal journey. Of being both lost and then found discovering truth and resolution and yes, even the ability to forgive God used my experiences even the most painful ones to draw me to himself. So my deepest desire as we go through upcoming podcasts (and blog posts) as you get to know me better...as I am just chronically authentic with you...Is that you find similar healing in all of this adventure?

I will talk about other things. I'm a homeschooling mom, so I'll talk about those skills and tips to do that. I've raised three adopted children that have struggled with abandoned and addiction. I've got my own stories there. I was a rock singer for a while and struggled with alcohol and substance abuse. I've got history in 38 years of marriage that was not always pretty, so I'll share some of those traumas and victories.

There are all kinds of things that I can share, but this is the one that brought me to this place. Not only to the place where I write my memoir, not only to the place where I write this Bible study, but I feel like there is a need out there and it's been confirmed through pastors in my life and other women in my life...there's a need to help others get to the place where they find genuine freedom and the ability to forgive. They can walk and live in real joy and real freedom. Okay. So that's why the podcast, the blog, the website, the writing...and that's why I'm here. So we're going to start to talk about things over the course of however many weeks the Lord allows me to share with you guys...We're going to talk about feeling unloved and unwanted and uncherished, unworthy, unhealthy in many ways. Unprotected, seriously unhappy, and by that I mean we're going to talk about anger and rage and how we react and respond. We are going to talk about being ungrateful. And we're going to talk, about not only feeling unforgiven, but unforgiving toward other people.

Together, we'll tackle that and much more. We're going to talk about the study. I'll be able to share that with you. You can go to my website at christiandramaqueen.com to find out more, or if you want to get to know me a little better, a little sooner, you can go to YouTube and find Christian Drama Queen. Which is my channel. I'm really looking forward to spending more time with you guys, so share the podcast, the blog, the study is on Amazon...make sure you follow me on YouTube...and you know I love ya!