The Lord restores broken relationships/2016

Gary, the man who fathered my daughter came back into our lives after 23 years. He left me 4 months pregnant with our baby. I wasn’t his wife, I shouldn’t have been with him as a wife is with her husband, but, I had our daughter. It devastated me when he left I was carrying my first baby. It was his second child, but he despised me after I had slept with him, the way men who are not married to women despise them after they have them. Like Amnon despised Tamar in the Bible, after he forced her to lay with him. After he raped her, then he tossed her like trash. She said the evil of shutting me out of your life is worse than the evil of having me. He shoved her out of his house like a common prostitute. I knew that feeling, of being forced out of a man’s life.

I had my baby. I never had it in my heart to abort her. Not because I am better than other women, the Lord preserved her life inside of me, by standing with me, and not abandoning me. He forgave me. This is why I was able to carry my baby, even though we were abandoned by her father. The Lord gave me Romans 8 to meditate upon, and memorize. I obeyed the Lord and digested the entire chapter by memorizing it, but more importantly by believing it.

My Father God raised my baby with me. He was her father, in the absence of her earthly father. God was with me through all of the terrible decisions I had to make over the years, whether or not to put her on medication when she was just 7 years old. He was my Rock, and continues to be my Rock and my Salvation. He is my Hiding Place, my place of Refuge. When I squeezed the tears of despair out, He was the one who quieted my soul.

For years it was the Lord, who I depended upon, He was our Father and our provider. He provided for the both of us, even when I could not keep jobs because of Emma, we have never been homeless or hungry, and that is completely due to the Lord. Her father Gary did not worry about us, he did not look back he called me once when Emma was 3 months old.

He paid child support over the years, but was never a father to her. I prayed in the middle of the night, “Lord, You know he was not even a father to Emma, not even one day of her life.” “It is You who are her Father, and my Father.”

There were so many difficult and heart-wrenching decisions I had to make over the years. I had to see my daughter hospitalized in Ventura for a week, when she was still a child. I couldn’t even visit her, as it was hundreds of miles away. We kept in touch daily by phone. The Lord was all I had He was the One who kept Emma safe, and me sane. This was Emma’s childhood. She went to the CARRE unit often a place where children who were in crisis went. She would spend the night there I would spend the night in tears on the floor. It was this way for years.

The Lord was and is my Shepherd. He shepherded the both of us. Even though I was without a husband, and Emma was without a father, He was both to us. His heart provided love and shelter. We belonged to the Lord, and He belonged to us. I cannot explain it any other way.

I never married. But I was loved, by my God. Like Rahab, who was counted as a prostitute, I was loved and chosen. Like Mary Magdalene, who was a prostitute, I was loved and chosen, as she was. The Lord God stands by women like me, who were abandoned as trash.

For 23 years God was with us, protecting us and loving us. There was a tender love when Emma was inside of my womb. He held onto our hearts as precious cargo. Even when relationships came and went, my God forgave me, and lifted me up, as the adulteress.

He said, “Go and sin no more.”

With a smile upon my heart, the Holy Spirit gave me the peace that surpassed all human understanding. He ministered to me, time and time again. The worst incision was when Emma’s father left. All of the months I was pregnant I wept every night. I prayed so hard, so fervently that Gary would return to us if not to us then to Emma. My soul cried out with ferocity to God for the father of my daughter to return to her.

The years passed, Emma grew up. There was not even so much as a letter from him. Last year I found him on face book, I wrote to him that I had forgiven him. Christ’s love has washed over my soul, healing me. The anguish he had left was gone.

Last week, he wrote to me while I was on-line. I responded. He wrote that he had tried to find Emma, but was unable to. Angry feelings resurfaced. I had forgiven him, but he seemed so casual in his responses. With tears that he could not see, I wrote him that Emma has suffered from bipolar disorder since she was a young child.

He only wrote, “I am very sorry to hear that.”

So many years of struggle came flooding back, drowning me in those minutes. I asked the Lord to breathe, just breathe on me. I was that young woman of so many years ago, remembering that brotherly kiss he gave me on the forehead. Our baby was growing inside of my body the kiss was a painful reminder of my rejection, the humiliation that scarred my pregnancy.

But the Lord had answered my prayers out of the blue amid my turmoil I recognized this as a gift. I wasn’t going to let the devil chain me to the bitterness the Lord had freed me from. I cried out to God to thank Him, to confess my divided heart over this situation. I didn’t sleep I lay in bed, not understanding the reason for this intrusion into our lives after 23 years.

In the morning I called my momma, and four of my siblings. I explained to them that Gary had contacted me last night after all of these years. Even though Emma would be 23 in December, I felt she was fragile, I texted her therapist Mary if I should tell her that her father had contacted us after all of these years. Mary texted back that Emma was strong enough to talk to him.

So I told Emma that her father Gary had contacted me on face book. “He wants to talk to you do you want to talk to him?” She said, “Yes”. Even though she confided in me that she doesn’t think about him anymore. “I have forgiven him.”

I remember when she was little she used to ask about him nearly every day. Wondering when he was going to come back. I used to tell her that if she wanted a good daddy she would have to wait, she could have a daddy now, but he wouldn’t be a good daddy. “I want a good daddy", she used to say.”

Two days later Gary called Emma for the first time. She had never heard his voice before. They stayed on the phone for almost 2 hours. Emma spoke to Gary from her bedroom and shut the door. I pressed my ear against the closed door to be able to hear any part of their conversation. I was worried.

Later she told me he said she could call him “dad” if she wanted to. She called him “daddy.” This bothered me as I thought she might get hurt by trusting him so quickly. I thought he would hurt her. Later that evening, I wrote to him, “I am the big momma bear, don’t hurt her.”

He called her for the second time two days later, they stayed on the phone less time, and the third time he called they didn’t even stay for half an hour. He gave Emma his phone number, but she hasn’t called him, and he hasn’t called back.

I had prayed that the Lord would reconcile them for years. Two years ago, I began to make that same prayer. Instead of Emma becoming attached to him, it was I who was becoming attached. We both “friended” him on face book. I wrote to him, several times on private message, and sent him pictures of Emma. The last time he called Emma was 4 days ago. The last time he messaged me was 3 days ago. In my enthusiasm for reconciliation I invited him to Thanksgiving dinner. Emma was not happy about that. But I told her he probably couldn’t come as he lived in another state. He wrote me he couldn’t come. I think it hurt me more than it hurt her.

For the first time, I was able to share my child with another human being. My heart noted that I had someone to share my child with, the father. Even though he hurt me, there was an irrational feeling that was happy that he was back in her life. It’s not that I wanted him back, that wasn’t it, it was the natural feeling God put inside of parents that having a child was a shared experience, and I had never experienced that before. My heart was becoming confused, this was strange. This is what sin had done it had separated us from Emma’s father. I say “us” because it is God’s will that mothers and fathers raise their children together. This wasn’t God’s fault, but mine.

Now, Gary was back in our lives in some measure, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I know it will not be a relationship for me, but the connection we have of sharing a child together, is the instinctual heart inside of every human being. No one wants to raise their child alone, but sin destroys unity.

When the temptation of sin sweeps over your heart, this is the part that the flesh never tells you, that sin is damaging the relationship. Sin tore the fabric of the relationship I had with Gary so many years ago. There is no relationship left, and very little relationship left with Emma. It would take a miracle for Emma and Gary to relate as father and daughter.

As much as we have suffered I believe Gary has suffered too. Our Lord died to restore relationships, His Sacrifice is all about restoration, He restored our relationship to God the Father. He made peace through the Blood of His Cross. (Colossians 1:20) I believe He wants to restore the estranged relationship between Emma and her father Gary.

My God does the impossible, He restores relationships. He restores what the locusts have eaten. It will take prayer on all of our parts, mine, Gary and Emma’s. But I believe Gary returned for a reason. Even though it has been 23 years, there is healing at the foot of the Cross. If we all come together at the Cross, the Blood of Jesus will heal the stripes of this broken relationship.