Dear Dad,
On this Father's Day, this will be the only words spoken to you. You will never read them, and if you did, you would never understand them. I remember as a child you loving me, and hugging me, taking me shopping with you. Then suddenly everything changed, and you began to criticize and ridicule everything I did. From that point on, it was random blasts of temper, borderline abuse, and the absence of love. You would get mad and then come and apologize saying that you loved me, but soon I began to question the extent of your love. As a child, I would write in my little diary, everything that you said or did to hurt me, and even now, as I read back through those, my heart continues to ache. I would pray to God, begging Him to change you, so that we didn't always have to live like this. I would pray for my mother, because she could not live much longer like it was. But God chose to never change you; maybe it was because you chose to not let Him. Thus causing our lives to be hell every second that we spent with you.
You never believed in me... always told me I would never amount to anything. You loved when I sang, but always immediately discredited it, saying that I could not just depend on my own abilities. When I went away to Bible College, you expressed that your indecisiveness about it, but Mom won that battle and away I went. Everytime I came home for the holidays, you and I would fight continuously, as you told me I was wasting my time and my money. You never failed to tell me how you viewed me as a failure for going to Gateway. You told me that you even felt embarrassed when people asked where your daughter was, and you would have to admit that I was away at a Bible College. You said that it made you feel embarrassed and irritated that "your daughter" wasn't doing anything productive with her life. How encouraging to hear that, as I worked strenuously for my tuition, and tried to develop my ministry in God, and as I gained recognition, you just turned your back even farther from me.
Now as an adult, I still feel like a child, desperate for approval, and searching for love. I am scared to trust anyone, because I trusted you, and look what you have become. I run from love, because you always promised that you loved me, and now I am not even sure what love is? You have made me scared to believe, of success, of commitment, and of my chances of ever finding love. But somehow through all of your inconsistencies, I have grasped a strength in myself, which only comes from when people force it out of you. I know exactly what to do as an adult; I can prevent myself from making the same mistakes that you did. I know exactly how to love my future family, because of your inability to love ours. I will always give my family and myself to God, so that my children won't doubt God, because of my insensitivity. I will love them and others with such a passion and fervor, all because of you and your insufficiencies. So on this Father's Day, I want to say that you have made this little girl, become stronger and more dependent on her real Father. My Father, Who will never deny me, always loves me, and always believes in me.
