Growing Up Without A Father - Worthy Christian Forums

I grew up without a father. He and my mother divorced when I was about 5.

To me, a father was someone to be afraid of. Someone to hid from. I looked to my friends fathers and often envied them because their mom and dad got along with each other and the dad treated his kids good.

As I grew up, I realized that I didn't know what a father was. I never saw a good interaction between a man a woman except those of my friends families. And then the neighbors would gossip about how my Mother was divorced. She never remarried.

When I became a Believer and read the parts of the Bible where it talks about God being our father, I couldn't understand that. If you being evil, or human, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly father give good gifts to you. Only thing is, my father never did give us anything good to remember him by. So I just filed that in my mind somewhere and locked the door with all the other things I wont let myself remember.

Until recently.

I was talking to God when I doing the laundry and I told him I wished I could feel like he was my father. I call him father but I didn't really feel it. And then I saw something in my mind, like a vision. There was this little girl in a little dress, toddling toward someone. I looked toward the person she was toddling toward and it was Jesus. I started crying because I realized that the little girl was me and that God was telling me that he was the father of children who had no fathers. I saw Jesus kneel down on his haunches and reach out and hug that little girl. And I felt like I finally had a father. A daddy who would hold me and tell me he loved me.

Jesus said if you've seen me you've seen the father. That's good enough for me.

So, now when I read that verse, I see that little girl being held by Jesus and I can understand a father being good to his child. I wonder how many others grew up not knowing what a father was. Not knowing how to relate to God or that Bible verse.

Willow

This post has been edited by Willow325: Aug 6 2008, 03:14 PM

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Wow! That's very touching. Thank you for sharing.

Great story. Thanks for sharing. I think there are many who view God as untouchable. Little do they know how much he wants to be close to each of us. Those who know Christ also know that God is our Father and not some high and mighty ruler of the universe. We are his children and as we wish to please him so too does he wish for our happiness. With a firm hand he deals with us but he is far from strict. We are free to make our own mistakes and to learn from them yet he is always there, in one form or another, to guide us. Our biggest challenge, with all the freedom we are given, seems to be acknowledging him and showing him the respect and love he deserves.

I understand your pain. My father was shot in the face and killed. It's very sad. I am here to talk if you would like to share. Peace!

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I too have grown up without a father but it has been a little different for me. My Father was a Christian man but I never got to know him. He was killed when I was very young. Many people tell me about what a good man he was and people who know about my using drugs nad drinking and sexual lifestyle will tell me how ashamed my father wold be of me. They know I loved my fahter, as much as you can love someone you never really remember. I guess they think by telling me that I'll feel guilty but I don't.

While he was a good Father, soft spoken, never punished us, never riased his voice (so I'm told since I don't remember) I am angry at him and have always been. I am angry at him for leaving me and never letting me get to know him, for never being there when I needed a father. For leaving me with a mentally ill mother who I can't stand and don't like and who has hurt me a lot, for not being there for daddy/daughter things at school and stuff.

For abandoning and deserting me. And I used that excuse to use more and drink more sort of like a pay back to him I guess. And then when people refer to God as the Father I guess all I can really see is someone else to abandon and leave me. Maybe that is why I don't pray? Maybe that is why with all I know about God and Jesus and the Bible and that I do believe in them and know they exist and are real I still don't pray. Because I compare to my earth dad who I believe just left me even thogh he didn't choose it.

I don't know, now I need to go do some deep thinking which usually ends up to my using and drinking......Maybe I'll just read some more here first. Thanks for sharing!

Kaia

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(IMG:style_emoticons/default/emot-hug.gif) you have an awesome testimony willow (IMG:style_emoticons/default/emot-hug.gif)

Wow willow, this makes two major things we have in common! I too did not have a father growing up, and I remember one time in church (I started going in college), the pastor talked about how God was just like our earthly fathers. My immediate thought was, "Then I want nothing to do with Him." It took a long time, but God showed me what a Father He really is, especially to us fatherless, just like you said. And He blessed me with a father-in-law who loves and adores me as well. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/emot-hug.gif)