I don’t really know how to start. I got so used to keeping everyone up to date by my writing, and then I just dropped off the face of the earth, and now I feel like there is too much to catch you up on. I will try in the next couple of weeks to go back and fill in the blanks. But I had to get this off my chest.
I was driving on my way home today when I heard a song on the Christians radio. They lyrics talked about a man sitting in a jail cell wondering if God would give this man someone to love him. Just recalling those words bring me to tears. I know a man who may be doing this right now, a man that for many years I called my father.
I’ve prayed for many years that bitterness and anger would fade. That I would feel love for this man like I once did. I think I feel it. I know I do, its reflected in the tears I shed for him as I write this and its reflected in my prayers that go out for him daily.
I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have all your rights taken away, to feel less than a person, and to wonder if you could ever make it out there, What will people think?
I am not excusing my dad’s behavior. For sin there is consequence the bible tells us so, and I don’t regret my testimony against him. What I do regret though was how I acted in many ways out of anger.
When given the choice for his time away and his sentencing, I took revenge. I asked for only a handful of years but I also asked for a title to be placed on his head..
I asked that he would always be singled out for his crime.
I regret this now. I was also listening to a sermon on Jonah today. I realized how much like Jonah I really am. I was overwhelmed with thankfulness when the Lord made himself known to me and cleaned up the mess of a life that I had made, but when he wanted me to extend that mercy to another person, I preferred for the Lord "to kill me" than make me do so.
I guess I realized that I still have a lot of this stuff to work through. I can’t take back what I asked for. Even if it feels deserved or not, or if it felt deserved. The point is it’s all done.
On the race I learned about how important names and titles are. What they can mean, how they can affect your future? I guess my prayer now is that I stop feeling this guilt. That I can live free from this too and that my dad can rise above what the world chooses to call him. That I don’t act out of anger. That I don’t have to keep learning things the hard way.
Therefore, this is what the LORD says: "See, I will defend your cause and avenge you; I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry.
Jeremiah 51:36
