Daddy Issues

Daddy and I at Virginia Beach-- 3 y/o

       I just turned nine two days ago. I wake to hands gently shaking me; I look to the clock and it's early...really early. Hands guide me downstairs to the living room where Pastor, Brother, and Sister wait. My sleepy nine year old brain clicks that something must be wrong. Hands seat me, the hands of my mother. She kneels in front of my brother, sister, and I, and words that will destroy us exit her mouth: "Daddy was in a car wreck." I'm about to ask her if he was OK, and she breaks down. Arms embrace me, and I look at my pastor who wears a pitiful look on his face, and I think to myself, "What is Grandma going to say?"

       Thus began almost fourteen years of healing. Of course, I don't think you ever really heal from something like that...there is always pain and grief where a loved one is missing...definitely learning that the hard way. I won't talk about its effects on my family, because I think their grief is theirs to share, but I will seek to give you a glimpse at my own and how God has been beyond faithful in it.

        Losing my dad simultaneously broke and built me. There's a hole strategically located somewhere in my heart that twinges a little when I see a little girl and her daddy or at a father daughter dance or when I see a grown woman having a conversation with her father at Starbucks. Sometimes that twinge is stronger that others. I've battled with feeling that my grief was unwarranted after so long...like after fourteen years, a girl should get her act together, right? She should be over it(a product of the hyper-independence growing up in a single parent family produces). But I've come to realize more and more that a family is meant to have a father...we were created to be father, mother, and child...and that when that is missing, a longing emerges for that hole to be filled.

        I tried to fill that hole with everything...I ate food to cope, to feel control over something, and fill myself when I felt empty and usually spent hours of inactive things like TV that I hoped would drown out the thoughts of how much the world sucked. I found myself craving attention(usually from males) in the absence of a life with healthy male interaction. I filled my life with AP classes, leadership positions, and taking delight in being the funny and outgoing girl to  feel like I had worth and value. And if we're wanting to be completely honest here, I still struggle with many of these things. The human soul yearns after significance, and when I follow my flesh desires, I bring destruction into my life. My weight continued to balloon to and past the point of unhealthy. My heart would crave love, I would strive for love, I would put my stock and expectations into someone, they would let me down(even if it was just perceived), and I would either disconnect emotionally or lash out. When I wasn't the funniest or most outgoing or smartest or best leader anymore(not that I was before, but when I was clearly out of my league), I went into what was probably a year and a half of borderline if not full blown depression my freshman and beginning of sophomore year of college.

       DESTRUCTION. I had been hurt, and I hurt others in turn. Friendships fell apart or were never the same again. I sabotaged myself in the health arena. And I simultaneously tried to feed my soul with things that would neither fulfill nor benefit it.

       BUT(thank God for buts), God was weaving my story the entire time. I was Israel, gone astray, brought out of Egypt, guided to the promise land, but jacking EVERYTHING up every step of the way. I was Israel, chasing things that would destroy me instead of the One who would heal me, and it took me realizing that I was in self-destruct, that everything in my life was falling apart, for me to turn to God, find peace and joy and healing for the first time in a long time. He spoke whispers in my ear of redemption and of perfect Fatherhood. He said that everything that I had ever done, sins I had ever committed, people I had ever hurt, were wiped clean. He said that I was accepted, that I was His daughter loved and beautifully and wonderfully made. He said that He gave me security and love and worth when He died on the cross for me. And He said that He had knit me together, soul, body, mind for a purpose, and that part of that purpose was entering into the darkness of the world and bringing the light that He offers. He showed me that in a lot of the darkness, other people had daddy issues too, and that it would be selfish for me not to tell them that God was the perfect Father in the absence of an earthly one, that He would never leave, forsake, hurt, nor fail us when we were His.

        When I saw that I was secure and valuable and FREE, I no longer had to cling to the comfort of food, but I could follow God's command to treat my body as a temple and to honor Him with that without fear that I would have a breakdown and have a Ding Dong. When I saw that God gave me fulfillment and worth that would not fail or falter, I could emotionally engage with people and love them well and enjoy imperfect and genuine community without fear that they would abandon me. The perfect love of God really did cast out fear.

        I'm still imperfect, still listen to lies, still have wounds ripped open sometimes, and this is obviously not all of my story, but I think it's a big fat thread that runs right through the middle of the tapestry that God is still actively touching and weaving. If you've gotten to the end of this, PROPS for reading my ramblings, and thank you for engaging with me and for caring enough to read. If you have any questions, I am an open book and would love to talk more.


O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
(Psalm 139 ESV)