Summary

The author describes a challenging journey of forgiving his father for a multitude of harmful behaviors and the transformative impact of faith in helping him overcome resentment and anger.

Abstract

The article narrates the author's personal struggle with forgiving his father, a man deeply entrenched in carnal pleasures, who subjected his family to embarrassment, sexual exposure, and substance abuse. Despite the author's early departure from the family home to escape these influences, the revelation of his father's sexual molestation of family members resurfaced deep-seated anger. The author's conversion to Christianity and the biblical commandment to honor one's parents led to a profound realization: forgiveness is not contingent on the father's honorable actions but is a divine directive. Through faith, the author came to understand his father as a victim of his own vices and learned to apply scriptural principles to transform past traumas into a source of comfort and guidance for others. The narrative concludes with the author's commitment to sharing further insights on forgiveness, emphasizing the redemptive power of the Gospel.

Opinions

The author initially harbored intense anger, resentment, and bitterness towards his father for his immoral and harmful actions.
The author's religious conversion introduced a conflict between his emotional response and the biblical mandate to honor his father.
Forgiveness is presented as a process that requires time, patience, and divine assistance, rather than an immediate or easy task.
The author's perspective shifted from viewing his father as intentionally malicious to recognizing him as a "captive victim" of his own life patterns.
The article suggests that personal hardships can be re-purposed for positive personal growth and to help others, aligning with the Christian belief that all things can work together for good.
The author plans to elaborate on the theme of forgiveness, highlighting the empowering nature of forgiveness and the role of the Gospel in personal transformation.

Forgiving My Dad Was a Fight — But I Finally Won that Fight

I’ll Have Another Story on This Shortly: “Forgiveness Empowers Both Us and Other People.” But it Beings with This Story.

My dad was what the Bible might call a ‘carnal man.’ Now it’s true that all of us are carnal. All it means in the big picture is to give in to bodily pleasure. Don’t we all do this to a degree?

But my dad was a guy who exploited being carnal and wanted to share it.

My Background in a Nutshell

He smoked so much he could never stop coughing and spitting. He drank so much I hardly ever saw him sober after about 6:00 p.m. He ran around naked, or at least in tiny men’s (or women’s) bikinis. He often embarrassed me by publically saying crude things to women. He wanted my mom to show me her genitals when I was 11. She didn’t. He tried to take me to a prostitute at 14, ‘so I could learn about sex right.’ He let us read Playboy and Penthouse magazines anytime we wanted. He offered my brother Tim and me cigs, drugs, booze, porn, whatever. He called my wife a slut before we married because he didn’t like her. He’d get drunk and cuss me out for anything, spraying me with spit. He constantly used both the name of God and Jesus as cuss words. I could say more, but you get the picture.

After I Left the Family Home

He did a few things to hurt our family after I left home, but they were minor. Then when I was 35 or so, we learned he’d sexually molested two family members. He was in Texas and I was in Colorado when I found out, but if I could have gotten to him at the time I would have shot him dead.

I left home at 20, as early as I possibly could. I didn’t avoid all of his bad traits. You know, “Life father, like son.” But I did avoid the vast majority of them.

Brother Tim stayed home until he was 30–32, and was exposed to dad longer. He got into all the carnal things possible, just like our dad. He died of a massive heart attack at 52. But he did clean up his act 5–10 years before he died. He gave it all up and was the cleanest guy you would ever meet.

But when dad died, Tim was so mad at him he wasn’t even speaking to him.

Forgiving My Dad Was a Big Job I Failed At

What else can I say? I sincerely tried, on my own, but I failed. I just had too much anger, resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness toward him.

I lived thinking about all the things he’d done and hurt us with for years.

“Honor Your Father and Your Mother”

I became a follower of Jesus during these years. And slowly but surely, God began revealing to me what he says: “Honor your father and your mother.”

Boy did God and I have a big argument about this! I went on a tirade and told God my dad was not honorable, and there was no way I could honor him.

He let me cool off and then said: “I didn’t say he had to be honorable. I just said to honor him.”

I admit I wouldn’t do this! It took me two years to work through it. But God is very patient with us. He doesn’t care if we’ve reached the mountain top or if we’re just headed toward the mountain. He just cares about our journey.

I Was Blaming God as Well as Blaming My Dad

When my spirit became a little quieter, God was able to show me that I was blaming him, and not just my dad. At least under my breath, I was saying:

God, you don’t know what you are doing. You gave me a crummy dad. I know you could have done better. Why didn’t you?

I slowly began seeing that my dad just wasn’t playing with a full deck of cards in the moral department. He was a victim. And he’d taken things done to him, and things he’d done in life, and let them become his life pattern. He wasn’t trying to hurt Tim and me, or my mom through his frequent adulteries. He just didn’t know any other ways to act. Again, he was a captive victim.

God Uses All Things for Good if We Will Let Him

Here is a verse so many people quote, especially in times of trouble: “All things work together for good to those who love God” (Rom 8:28).

I know all scripture is true, but one thing most people don’t see here, that the Bible repeats many times in other places, is that things only turn out for good if we respond to them in the right way. Here’s what I live by daily: (1) RECEIVE whatever comes my way, either good or bad. (2) RELEGATE it to my personal use and benefit. (3) RELEASE it to others.

I had received all the bad things that my dad had influenced me with, but I had not relegated it to my personal use and benefit, at least positively.

There is another verse that I’ve seen come to pass many times since I forgave my dad, and it is this in II Corinthians 1:4: “God comforts us in all our trials, that we may be able to comfort others who are in any trials or trouble, by the comfort we ourselves are comforted by God.”

God lets us all experience different negative things in life, but if we relegate them in our own personal lives beneficially, these things do work out for the best, as Romans 8:28 says. I’ve been able to help a lot of people by just saying personal things from my life, and it’s helped them grow in theirs.

I will follow this story up with another in the near future. It will be called something like, “Forgiving God’s Gospel Way” or “Forgiveness Empowers Both Us and Other People.”

The gospel is the power of God in us, and it is what produces good things from us if we will live it and let it do so. It causes all things to work for our good — or at least for our betterment.