Forgiving My Dad

My dad and how my heart has changed towards him

Story Tags

acceptance, depression, healing, hatred, insecurity, fear, family, guilt, change, high school, traumatic experience, College

Explore the Story

• Craving Acceptance
• Twists and Turns
• Identity Crisis
• The Hole in Our Heart
• Where's God in suffering?
• Living to the Fullest
• Handling the Unknown

When I was growing up my family was really dysfunctional. My mom and my dad have a really rocky relationship. My dad has been unemployed since 1995 and my mom had to work extra hard as the breadwinner of the family. I remember there were times, growing up, when my mom worked 70 hrs a week and I would barely see her.

My dad was very abusive towards my mom. He blames all his failures in life on her. For instance, he feels the reason he is not rich and successful is because my mom controls all the money in the household and wouldn't let him invest the way he wants to. They would argue all the time, almost always about money.

Life would alternate between periods of peace and periods where my parents would fight constantly.

This affected me a lot. Both my parents would try to get me to take their side. Though my mom was not innocent in this either, I took her side growing up. I felt my dad was a heartless monster. How could he torture my mom like this, my mom provides for him, he doesn't have to work, why does he still make my mom's life so miserable by yelling at her all the time. Why does he not get a job? Why is he angry all the time?

My mom would always tell me what a mistake she made in marrying my dad, that it was the worst decision of her life; how tired she was of working all the time, all the faults and problems my dad has. Hearing my mom talk like that really really hurt me. I can't describe it other than that it hurts. The wound was even deeper because a part of me, despite all my bitterness, still loved my dad and it hurt to hear my mom talk about him like that.

One night in high school, my mom had just come home from work; it was around 11:00 pm. She went and lay down on the couch like she normally would. My dad, who was ruminating the whole day about all the problems in his life, came rushing into the living room, screaming. He was screaming about all the money my mom has lost in her investments, how she wouldn't let him control any of the money and how she would give money to the in-laws. He went on and on. My mom went from room to room, trying to sleep, and my dad just followed her yelling and screaming.

As I was watching this from my room, I remember sitting there and thinking, "I wish my father was dead, my life would be so much easier if my father just died". At that moment I felt so much angry and resentment towards my dad, it felt like something was burning in my chest.

Growing up, I felt guilty that I couldn't protect my mom, I was afraid that I would turn out like my dad, I was afraid of my dad. I hated my dad for what he did to the family and I was very bitter towards both of them for putting me through something like this.

The fear that my family life made me a damaged person left me very insecure. I was ashamed of people finding out how messed up my family was, and what they might think of me because of them. I was a very bitter and hateful teenager. One of my mom's friends, Grace, whose Sunday school I was in during grade-school, said she has never seen such an angry kid.

I cared too much for acceptance to let this get out when I was at school, but my real self came out when I was at home. The way I treated my little cousins, who lived with our family, showed the hate and darkness that was in me. Every opportunity I got, I made fun of them, I picked on them mercilessly, I even told my youngest cousin who was eight at that time that her parents did not love her. I once even hit my little cousin who was seven years younger than me AND a girl for slamming my computer.

My hope in high school was to go to college far away and get away from my high school life and start over. My mom brought me to church sometimes when I was growing up, so I was exposed to Christianity, but it was never real to me. When I got to college, I met a guy name Brent on the rugby team and I started going to church with him.

In college I looked to three things to give my life meaning and definition: chasing girls, rugby and academics. One by one, God showed me how meaningless those things are and how there’s got to be more to life than those things. For instance, the relationships with girls I had in the beginning of college ended up hurting me a lot, and even when they were going well, I wasn't that much happier, my life wasn't really any better. Our rugby team wasn’t very good, it wasn’t fun playing, and I found out painfully that I am not that good of a rugby player.

While there's nothing wrong with school or rugby or girls, God showed me that there’s so much more to life than those things. My ability to play sports was going to end one day no matter how good I became. Girls, while it was exciting, couldn’t numb the pain I was in. In the all the pain and emptiness in my life, I started to realize that I needed something to save me, I needed a savior bad. It was a slow process of being broken by God but I finally gave my life over to Jesus and accepted him as savior, in the middle of my sophomore year.

God has changed me and blessed me so much since I begun to know him, without God, I don't know what or how the hate inside of my heart would have manifested itself. My insecurities would still be eating me alive. He has helped me to cope with my depression; He has forced me to face insecurities that I would have never faced on my own; He has given me purpose, something to live and hope for. He has brought awesome people into my life to change me.

One of God’s coolest blessing was that He has allowed me to forgive my dad and heal my relationship with him.

The peace and the love and the fulfillment that a relationship with Christ brought me, helped me to see that my dad does not have those things. Through all the things God has blessed me with, his love for me, the brothers he brought into my life, answered prayers, I came to realize that my dad did not have those things. God was slowly changing my heart for my dad, He was softening my heart and allowing me to have compassion towards my dad. I slowly began to see how empty of a life my dad leads. How he is just shell of a man, who is very insecure, who is emotionally very immature, living in country he doesn’t like, whose language he can't speak. I began to see how he tries to cover up his failures in his life behind his anger, his put-downs, and his boastings. I even began to see that underneath all of that, he really does care for me and my mother. Little things I never saw before, how whenever he was out, he would always buy food for my mom when he came back. How he would do anything for me when I asked him. The awkward hugs and “I love you's” I thought was so fake growing up, I really see now is just because of his insecurities.

God also began to reveal the darkness of my own heart to me too. I slowly began to see just how horribly I treated my dad growing up. I remember my mom telling my dad in one of their arguments how much his son hated him. I remember locking my dad out of my room growing up and not letting him in. How I would ignore my dad when he tried to talk to me. My dad may have done a lot of things wrong, but I know he loved me, and he still was my father, it must have pained him deeply to be treated that way by his son.

I love my dad now. There is nobody I want to experience the love of Christ more. How Christ’s love changes us. I know it changed me. I see my dad, he is so powerless to change the way he is. He is so much like a scared kid, too proud to ask for help. I desperately want my dad to know that God loves him and that He can give him power to change.

Jesus is real; His love for us is real. I don’t know how, and I can’t really explain it, but that love is real and it changes us. I spent most of my life hating my dad and to suddenly be able to say in the last 2 years that I truly love my dad, that I care for him, that I want what’s best for him, and that I have forgiven him. I don’t think changes like this just happen to a person, something must have changed me.

The way Jesus loves me and changed me, He offers that to anybody who wants it. If you would like to know who Jesus is and know His love, all you have to do is ask him, He exists and He will answer you. If you are still searching and deciding about who Jesus is, I would encourage you to keep searching, the things He promise to do for us, the things He will Show us, it is well worth the search.