God doesn’t have to change our past to bring healing to our hearts.
He heals the wounds of every shattered heart. Psalm 147:3 TPT
When I was 25 years old, my biological father passed away. I was living in California at the time, and he lived in Ohio. I took a week off work and flew out there to settle his affairs. My parents had divorced before I was two, and I never really had a close relationship with my dad. Growing up, I wanted to write letters to him, but my mother told me that my dad couldn’t read or write. Because of that, I never wrote him letters. What would be the point of writing to someone who couldn’t read them? He came to visit us every year, staying at my grandmother’s house for a few weeks over the summer. Me and my siblings would take turns spending time there with him. But that was the extent of our relationship.
While I was going through his house after his death, I discovered something that changed the way I saw him. I found letters he had received and written. He had books around his house that obviously had been read. My dad could read and write. What I was told about him all those years wasn’t true. I also found his Bible. You could tell he read it regularly. Looking through some of his writings and letters, I learned that he had given his life to Christ. That profoundly affected me. I was sad because I felt like I was robbed of the chance to know him this way. I also felt guilty, because I could have called or tried harder to connect with him. But I didn’t, because like most twenty-somethings, I was focused only on myself. I had given my life to the Lord when I was 15 years old. Here was something we had in common, something meaningful that we could have talked about. We could have shared our faith, talked about God, and perhaps developed a really close relationship. Instead, I was finding out about it after he was gone.
For a long time, I was angry at my mom for lying to me about him. I felt cheated out of knowing my father. When I got into recovery and started working through the Steps, this painful situation came up very early on. I resented her for what she did. I couldn’t change what she told me. I couldn’t undo the past or get back all those years I had lost. What I could do was change how I responded to those feelings. I didn’t want to feel pain, anger, and resentment anymore. As I prayed and asked God to help me work through the Steps with my sponsor, these feelings began melting away. Forgiveness crept in and filled the void. As I continued, peace and love soon followed.
Sometimes I still get sad when I think about it. But then I get cheered up when I consider that I will see him again on the other side and we will have much to catch up on then. That brings me great comfort. Working my recovery has allowed me to look for and embrace the good while letting go of the pain, resentment, and guilt of the past. And that’s the gift of recovery for me.
Reminder: God doesn’t have to change our past to bring healing to our hearts.