I knew the whole process of me coming to IHOP was just a God thing. FYI -If you don’t believe in God then you will just not get this or understand a lot of what I write about for the next three months. You won’t understand how things just made sense for me, or how things came together only by His grace and redeeming love. One thing I did want to record was that I had been mad at my Dad since New Year’s day and the day that these things I’m writing about took place was the 9th. I had been mad at him before this point, but it was pretty much buried deep inside me with calluses on the surface of my heart. Like something that had been silently rubbing and rubbing for years and growing bigger that had yet to grow a knot and become a real painful nuisance. Let me remind you it was a callous not a zit maybe more like a wart too. However, the feelings had become so strong on me since NY’s day that I was recently an emotional mess, it felt like it had developed into a zit or a wart since it was starting to hurt. NY’s day, it was like he made everything he ever said to me -all the negative things from my whole life, that I could remember, come rushing back like a flood. A flood that makes your eyes float. Of course the devil was throwing his lies in too and making me feel a LOT worse. I was an emotional mess. Feelings that I hated, hated myself for, and that I just couldn’t take anymore came to my mind and attacked me from the 1-9th. I was so tired of living in this bondage of living for him and trying to please him – even though I felt like he could never be pleased. Such a wretched feeling and maybe the root of it was that I didn’t feel that he loved me and that he was pleased with me. That’s probably what I longed for the most. That just feeling of acceptance and security from him that I could never really put a finger on till now.
We left early Sunday morning and drove 3.5 hours to Atlanta and arrived 30 minutes prior to the service starting. When I entered the sanctuary there were people praying and there was someone playing the piano, playing some sweet meditating music. The room really felt anointed, I knew the presence of the Lord was present and because of this I think I felt like I was going to cry. It was like I felt so heavy walking into the room, like I had dragged this huge trunk in with me that held all my fears, hurts, and pain. I sat there next to my dad and my mom sat next to him and I don’t remember why I started crying but I did. I think I was so overwhelmed. It felt so surreal that I was going to this IHOP Atlanta internship and for the first time in a really long time, it just felt like it was right. I think maybe it was like a release from the whirlwind of things that took place in the last month and I was probably having some anxiety about the future and my new beginnings. I think what really got me was that I was leaving my parents for the first time and I was so mad at them. I was so bitter towards them for some reason. I was mad at my father for what happened on New Year’s Day and it just made me so upset and totally ravished me. My eyes began to water at the thought of them leaving and me being mad at them and I just felt like I wanted to cry. My mom leaned forward to ask me something and when she saw I was crying she came and sat next to me and maybe tried to hold my hand or something. I don’t remember clearly. But the next thing I know my head is somehow falling to my right and lands on my dad’s shoulder- this is so not me! I felt like I was fighting my flesh to stay sitting straight up, but that’s what happened and when that happened my mom was trying to get my dad to lift his arm and put it around me to hold me. He held me with one arm as I wept bitterly and just basked in the act of my father holding me because I really couldn’t remember the last time he had held me and I couldn’t really remember the last time I had hugged him. I felt like a little girl again. I felt like a mere child as I didn’t fight my flesh and allowed my father to hold me and show that he loved me as much as he physically could. As I just sat there taking it all in, crying, and trying to hold onto these sweet moments that would soon be a fleeting memory, I had realized this was why we got there early. God knew I needed this time with my father, these few precious minutes that I had dreaded was like a pumice stone against my calloused heart for him. And now the healing that I have longed for can begin. I can make a stake that one day I will forgive my father for the things he has done and the things he hasn’t done. I know we are not perfect and we have major communication issues probably rooted in insecurities and fear of man/ lack of boldness, but I can finally walk in the confidence that my father cares for me and loves me. Thus, now that my earthly father has given me this confirmation of his love and it was tangible, it’s so much easier to grasp that my heavenly father loves me and it too is tangible, so tangible.
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