Writing is extremely therapeutic for me.
I don’t know why but recently thoughts of the past are popping up in my mind.
Thoughts of the lies, the confusion, the turning points, the moments that I thought were normal.
Two years ago I discovered a photo of my father on Facebook. It wasn’t a photo I was proud of.
It was a photo of my father heavily influenced by drugs and alcohol.
It was a photo of him with the woman that was getting high with him when he overdosed.
It was a photo that sent me back into a place of mourning.
Not mourning his death but mourning the father I never got to know.
I have very specific remembrances of my father.
90% of those moments had to do with him being high.
The rest of the moments had to do with him saving me from a really ratcheted situation of having sex with a family members around the age of 9 who were around my age.
He knew so much more than I did.
I was innocent.
Not the innocent of being untouched innocent.
I was innocent of what that moment would have done to me.
Recently, I have really been praying and thinking about what to write about on the blog. I am not interested in the numbers as much as I am interested in helping people live authentic lives in the image of Christ.
I have a story for everything people tell me.
My life is but a mystery to me.
I have gone through so much that even today I don’t realize the impact of moments like the above.
My father was a protector.
He wasn’t the typical protector. He wasn’t there when I needed him.
He was a protector at selective moments.
Often times we tend to think of moments as bad and good. I am truly learning to see the good in all moments. God can use any and everything to show us Him.
People ask if God is all powerful and all knowing why doesn’t he stop pain and suffering.
I instead ask God how I can learn from my pain and suffering.
How can I love the man I never got to know. I am the daughter of a drug dealer who was a victim of the system.
When people speak of my father they never mention anything negative. He was an amazing soul that was held under the power of his own desires.
I don’t know what my father was running from. I don’t know why he did drugs, gambled, sold drugs, gave away all his money.
I don’t know much about him but the small stories I have of him and those others tell me. But what I do know is that his absences made me a fighter.
His absences made me realize very early on that there was something more to life than what I was experiencing.
His presence made me realize he loved me but didn’t know how to express it.
What are you holding on to? Can you see the good in any of it? What moments hold you hostage that can actual reveal that God is always there; even in pain and suffering.
