As the oldest daughter in my family, I was the first in many things. Perhaps the hardest was being the first to leave my father. He was not an agreeable man, unless, of course, you were agreeing with him.
I was twenty-three, ready to leave for my first year of college. It was time for me to say good-bye. I went out into the backyard, looking for him. I found him, his face set like stone, staring hard at the horizon. I leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek; he turned his face the other direction. My heart pulsed in pain for the ten thousandth time as I ached for his approval and, now, for his blessing.
When I arrived at school I remember one of the driving intentions I had was to find out what actual power my father had over me? I pressed just about every professor at college with questions. I was desperate to make sense of the chronic fear and confusion in my life. I was desperate to understand, I was desperate to be understood.
Two years went by; I finished college, and I returned home. By this time my health had completely deteriorated from years of chronic stress and I was in a position where it was necessary for me to depend on my father to take care of me.
I was humbled, I was angry, and I prayed.
“Lord, how will I ever heal? I’m constantly under stress here! I need you to provide a literal home for me that is safe, but how can this happen for me? I am not well enough to work a full-time job, I’m completely stuck; completely dependent on You!”
A few months later, my father came home from work and said to me: “Hey, I met someone at work today whose looking for someone to care for and to live in their home for six months, is that something you’d be interested in?” Six months, rent free…a house to myself.
I’ll never forget the feeling of my first night there. I sprawled out face-first on the bed. It was quiet…I could hear my own breathing, I could hear my own thoughts. The atmosphere of stress was gone. I had been given a place to land, a space to heal. I would go on to spend seven winters in that home. Each season, growing in understanding God’s heart for me, becoming okay with letting what my father couldn’t give me go. So many beautiful exchanges happened. Self-contempt for self-care, hopelessness for healing, rejection for acceptance. Hatred for forgiveness.
”[I] will be the stability of your times, an abundance of salvation, wisdom and [understanding]. The fear of the Lord is [your] treasure.” - Isaiah 33:6
This is the promise I have leaned into over the years, and this is the promise that has become a miraculous reality for me. Praise be to God!
Submitted Anonymously on 11/30/2021