Forgiveness

Last year in the ladies room of the Waffle House in Bellevue, Tennessee I asked God to transform my heart and my mind. Lord, I need You to do this for me or through me. I need You to stand in front of me or help me stand by myself. I need You to hold my hand. I need You to help me forgive my dad. I need You to make me forgive my dad. I need to forgive my dad. 

And I did.

Sixteen years of anger and hurt and turmoil and tears- gone. Gone from me were the nights I cried myself to sleep because my daddy had left me and I didn't understand why. Gone from me was the pain of watching his dependency on alcohol grow. Gone from me was the desire to have the last word. It was all gone. I felt lighter. I felt younger. I felt like one giant ball of triumphant love.

As an adult I can look back and understand a lot of things. My parents weren't married. My dad and my mom both wanted completely different things out of life and suddenly there I was. I can see why my dad left. I can look back on when I was ten years old and living with my dad and my step mother and see how difficult it was to deal with a hurt little girl that had no idea how to cope with anything. I can see where my dad's need for alcohol came into play. I can see where and why God sent me back home to my mother in Georgia. I can see the sheer beauty in my father getting sober when I was fourteen years old. I can see how difficult it was for my dad to try to forge a better relationship with me out of the crumbling one we had. I can see why he became distant. I look back and see how my choice of only acting out of anger and spite really stunted any kind of growth in our relationship. I can see how my not forgiving my dad hurt him, but ultimately took the largest toll on me.

What I don't understand is why my dad got sick.

Whether it be the alcoholism or genetics, my dad was diagnosed with Early Onset Dementia last year. I don't even remember when I found out. I don't remember the phone conversation. I don't remember where I was standing in the house when I was told. I don't remember how I told my husband or my mom, but since I found out the same sense of fear has resided in my gut.

When my mother and I left our apartment in Snellville and moved to Thomson I had no idea what was going on. By the time my dad married my step mother I had plenty of ideas of what was going on and I was one furious little kid. At eight years old I remember painting the back deck with my mom and her telling me that I should forgive my dad. She told me about her dad and about her childhood and how she didn't forgive her dad until she was an adult but when she did they became best friends. My mom ended up being the only one out of seven children my grandfather really had a relationship with because she was the only one who forgave him for leaving my grandmother. She told me I would regret it if I never forgave my dad. I didn't believe her.

As a child I held on to my anger because I didn't understand how to let go of it. As a teenager and a young adult I held on to my anger because I thought it put me above the whole thing. I thought I had authority in my anger. There is no authority in the wake of disease. There is no authority in the wake of forgiveness, either.

Shortly after I found out about my dad's illness I went to Tennessee to see him and my step mother. Southwest Airlines lost my luggage on the way to Tennessee and on my first full day there I ate breakfast with my dad in the same clothes I had worn the day before. I think my luggage being lost was God getting me to be a bit more humble. I'm a prideful person. Prideful people have a hard time forgiving others. As I scarfed down my glorious Waffle House scattered, smothered, and covered hash browns I looked at my dad and saw him as a human being. A man who had made mistakes. A man who had regrets. A man. A human. A child of God who is just as loved and just as forgiven as I am.

We finished out meal. I went to the bathroom, and I forgave.

Since then my dad has become one of my best friends. He is one of my biggest supporters. He gives some of the best advice. He makes me laugh. He sends me encouraging text messages when I need them the most. At twenty two years old my dad is honestly one of my favorites. I, myself, could go back in time and tell my teenage self that and she wouldn't believe me.

We are commanded to forgive others as God has forgiven us. We like to pick and choose who we extend that forgiveness to. God sent His only Son to die for all of us. He didn't pick and choose certain people for Jesus to die for. There are a lot of girls out there that need to forgive their fathers. There are a lot of people out there that need to forgive other people. Don't withhold your forgiveness any longer. You won't regret it.