Victim or Victor!?

How long will you be the victim?
How long are you still the one who Dad “abandoned”?

He was in my face, “Dad, do you forget the pain of your father leaving you? It’s not her fault; she’s still screwed up by that!”

This comment caused me to really think. I’m not “really” screwed up, only partially.
My initial response to the comment was “she needs to get over it, it’s not who she is, it’s what happened to her!”

This comment is true, it’s been fleshed out by so many. As an adult-child of Divorce I often confront the question of my identity. But, these words, blurted out in a high pitch of emotion was, a wake-up call again. It is a fact that the effects of those child-hood wounds can be long suffering. But to excuse the current problems in your life as the result of the emotional wounds of years ago may well be an excuse rather than a fact.

Two strong influences that help in the healing of the effects of rejection and abandonment are healthy replacement of Parental relationships and the building of Personal Identity.

Parental relationships can have a healthy replacement. The introduction of step-parents can greatly help in the re-building healthy interaction of parent and child. The younger the age, the more effective. The more sensitive the step-parent is to being a normal loving parent as if he or she were the biological parent, the more health results.

I’ve also seen significant adults who have given the child from a family of Divorce positive and life-long influence in caring for and modeling to them healthy, positive influence.

Over the years I’ve come to understand that young people need to know that Mom and Dad are “for” them. The desire to know that someone has made the decision to be there for you is irreplaceable in building a strong self-image. It allows for the safe factor as you attempt new things.

Individual experiences, successes and failures alike are the building blocks to establishing one’s identity. Finding out what your interests are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, what comes easy and what things are challenges are all the elements that go into helping you come to know Yourself.

The bottom-line to being healed from the abandonment and rejection involves also knowing that God has not made you the wounded. He desires to heal you and let you have the unlimited possibilities of growing and being who You can be.

I was a fatherless boy, who met my Heavenly Father at 15 and then became a father of boys.

Im far from perfect but I know that I am no longer the wounded child, I am now more the choices I choose and the focus I keep.

Is Your "Well" Dry?

A miracle happened last week! My well has water again!!

A couple of months ago my water well that we use to water the ½ acre of lawn and shrubs in our yard dried up. Another sign of our drought conditions in Central California as well as the political hot potato of water use in our area.

I was soo distressed “what now?” I said both inward and outwardly.

“LORD we need water!”

I then dug holes, bought pipe…dug again after hooking up the wrong pipe to the sprinkler system and the water flowed from the city water line to the sprinklers.
Have You been there in your life? a season of drought… Your well seems to have run dry. Relationships have “dried up”, there doesn’t seem to be life-flow in it? Brokenness overwhelms health.

Relationships run that way, they are so dynamic that there is constant life ebb and flow. Since humans are able to make decisions and choices there is nothing static about a relationship. Every moment, you can choose how to respond, what to say, touch or not touch topics or each other. We are affected by choices of others and we are affected by our own choices.
But in all relationships there is this “well” problem.

If our “well” runs dry we cannot make the choices needed. Especially, the un-conditional love choice of giving to another regardless of receiving anything in return. When this happens relationships hit an impasse.

So how do I get the miracle of re-filling the well? My backyard well looked pretty hopeless. I was told I may need to drill deeper. A well and pump company was working on an agricultural well across the street and told me the water table was 105 feet. My well is probably 90 feet. Yikes !

Then I heard about “re-charge”. Ahh and that had been delayed by the powers to be. The St. John’s River a mere ½ mile from our home had not been flowing from the Lake above until late May and the pumps along the river used to “re-charge” the water underground had not been pumping.

This re-charge principle, is taking the resource from outside and infusing it into the underground to be drawn upon again by wells. So that’s what we need! A re-charge from an outside resource so to be filled up again and able to then “pour” ourselves out.

My friends get re-charged! I believe God is the best resource for getting a re-charge.

Oh and my well, as I turned it on to see if maybe there might be some water… and I received a miracle - WATER is flowing again from my well, because it received a re-charge, a deep re-charge and the life-giving water is flowing again