My Three Fathers

I am sure you have heard how our view of God, our heavenly father, comes from how we view our earthly fathers.  Many people have a problem with God because of their earthly fathers.

My early memories of my biological father were all of him being angry.  I once was given an ear of corn from a neighbor and went home eating it.  My father saw me with that corn and rushed out.  Grabbing the corn from me, he stuck his face in front of mine and yelled at me.  I have no idea what he said, but I remember his anger.  He once got mad while we were fishing and threw all of our poles and the dog into the river.  I do not have any early memories of him where he is not angry.

The night he left my mother and I, I was in my bed when he bursted through the door.  He began to tear everything in my room apart.  He threw my record player against the wall breaking it apart.  He tore my clothes in two.  Once he was done and everything in my room was broken, he left never to return.

Soon after my father left, my mother remarried and my step father adopted me.  He was a good man, but I still loved my biological father.  My way of thinking was that if I accepted this man as my father then my real father would be lost forever.  Over time my attitude towards him wore down my step father, and he became abusive.

He would take wooden boards and make paddles out of them.  If I did anything wrong he would use them on me hard enough that he would break them on my backside so that he would have to then use his hand.  I believe in spankings but not like this.  One time, he tried to break my arm but my mother stepped in and stopped him.

He would tell me how worthless I was.  I couldn’t do anything right.  He told me I was going to end up in prison someday.  I do not remember him ever telling me anything good when I was growing up.  He never told me that he loved me.

If I was to look at my earthly fathers as my guide as to what my heavenly is like I would have a very warped view of God.  He would be a very angry and vindictive God.  He would be destroying all I owned to punish me.  I would be battered around by him and told how worthless I was.  He would abandon me.  I would be alone in the times I really needed him.  God would be untrustworthy and hateful.  He would be a bearer of sorrow, shame, pain, loneliness, worthlessness, destruction, hate, anger, and much more.

God worked a miracle in my life and showed me that He is not like my earthly fathers.  He is faithful and true. He will never leave me or forsake me.  God’s love for me is pure and no matter what I do He will not point a finger at me accusingly.

I found out that while my earthy fathers were fallible and sometimes did not act as a father should, my heavenly father never failed and always did what was best for me.  He has become the father I had always desired.

I have forgiven my earthly fathers for not meeting the needs I had.   I respect them for trying to do their best while still living a life without Christ and his guidance.   I am made of flesh just like them, and I make mistakes as well.  Thankfully, I don’t have to follow them.  I have my Heavenly father to follow instead.

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