When I left to go to church this morning, I had no idea that I would be writing a Happy Father's Day to my dad. This was inspired by what I heard my minister say in his sermon. Thanks, Rev. Joe. I hope you had a wonderful Father's Day.
Jesus tells His Father to "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." We can all apply this to ourselves and to our parents. I have heard for years in Al-Anon and ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics), that our parents did the best that they could. I used to get very angry when someone would say that. Finally, someone added the following words to that sentence, "and it wasn't good enough." Those few words added made all the difference to me. My feelings were being validated. Rev. Joe today said "They did the best that they could with the tools that they had from their level of consciousness. I like that statement too. I feel that I have a higher level of consciousness than my parents had and I still make mistakes with my children.
I read somewhere a few years ago, that we see God as having the same attributes as the father that raised us. What fatherly attributes have you given your God, the Father?
I need my God to be a loving, forgiving, and compassionate Father. I don't need Him to be the physically and emotionally abusive father that I grew up with. Nor is He an angry, raging Father. My God is not a punishing, nonforgiving Father.
My God understands my needs and desires. He knows why I think the way that I do. He knows why I feel the way that I do. He is perfectly ok with me getting angry at Him. With my dad, I was never allowed to feel that I was angry with him. I often wondered if I would survive the wrath of my dad.
"Happy Father's Day, Daddy." I can finally say, "I love you." and not feel the rage that you acted out and I suppressed in myself. Daddy, I now know that I chose you as my dad before I was born. I also know that you were my husband in a past life so maybe I chose you as my dad so that we could both end the karma that we both attracted to us in that past life time. It has taken a long time and a lot of hard work to get here. I am grateful for the opportunity to grow that this lifetime has given me.
My dad died on January 6, 2001, alone and probably frightened and angry at himself and God. He was alone because of the life style that he chose. He was probably frightened and angry because dying was out of his control. My dad was a dictator. I was able to make my peace with my dad a year and a half before he died. I am thankful that I was able to face him and say "I forgive you."
As my consciousness grows and expands so could my idea of who God is. This is a God of my understanding and nobody else has to agree with me. I want to end with saying,
"Happy Father's Day, God, my Father." Hope you had a nice one.
4 comments:
My fingers hesitate...what I'm itching to type is why do we see something so ineffable and omnipresent as God in terms of gender? Gender is a brilliant evolutionary strategy enabling and enriching the physical component of consciousness and "is-ness". One way through which the universe/god can know itself/ourselves. To call our God a mother or a father seems to unnecessarily complicate healing from our own woefully damaged and incompetent fathers (and mothers). One thing I realized in 2007 is that granting someone forgiveness cannot be done with even a speck of submission. With even a hint of am-I-good-enough-now?. The best forgiveness comes with the joyous freedom to stop communicating with them; releasing them to try again next time and wishing them more peace and success with the next souls they encounter. But away away with them! They had their chance to communicate with us and they lost it. If we stop looking up to a parental God with our desire to receive compassion and forgiveness and to be loved...we can instead be love. We can let all our defenses down and let ourselves be flooded with love. Let all the fearful energy ground into us as children flee from the light that we are. We never belonged in the dark with our fathers. I can look back with compassion for defiling himself and genuinely wish him well but I wash my hands of his journey. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit! And the Spirit has me whole!
Wordsistr, I appreciate your hesitation and your honesty. Forgiveness is a difficult subject for many of us.
The Hindu religion has taught me that I don't have to have any form for God. God can be and is formless as his highest being.
In doing forgiveness, I hope that I never give the impression that I am asking the question, "Am I good enough now?" Forgiveness is my way of releasing the anger and sadness from my mind and body that have been doing me harm for years. It has nothing to do with my dad and where he is. Up until the day that he died, my dad was still a sexual preditor, not safe for me or my children to be around. He had not been a part of our lives for many years.
Thanks for sharing your views.
With me I have never questioned whether there needed to be forgiveness but understanding and since I never knew my daddy or even really my mom though i lived with her I am forever living a big question mark. Somehow the Eternal One put in my heart not the desire to be angry but a desire to understand and that I cannot understand why things happened, why I was born and not really wanted..why the man who donated part of himself to create me ran ..and why my mom accepted his donation only because she needed easy cash..leaves me with a big questionmark in my mind. I feel to be angry one has had to understand things..I dont' understand and that is my great suffering. not knowing why things happened..why I happened. .and why after I happened .I was not wanted.. I surrender up my lack of understanding to the Creator that He may handle my confusion as He sees fit. as I cannot make sense of any of it. I am an orphan simply because I was not planned.. Happy Daddy's day .where ever and whoever you are. .and sorry . .you never got to know me. ..joy
Healing_Within, at this point in your healing journey don't even think about doing forgiveness. It is too early in the journey.
At some point you may have to let go of all of the trying to understand and just do the feelings. Constantly asking why when there is no one to give you the answers, honest answers, not the lies from your abusers, can keep you stuck in the pain of child abuse. I know because for a long time, I was stuck in the whys, wanting to know why I was abused rather than allowing myself to feel.
Why keeps you in your head. As long as you are in your head, you can find all kinds of ways not to feel the pain of the childhood abuse. In order to heal, you have to go through the pain.
You blog posts are a good place to start. Keep up your writing. It does help.
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