FATHER WOUNDS
Reclaiming
Your Childhood
by
Francis Anfuso
Copyright 2008 The Rock of Roseville
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Copyright (c) 2008
The Rock of Roseville.
Cover design by Hans Bennewitz
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by the Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-9791957-4-7
To my earthly father:
Though you are the person who hurt me most on earth,you are the one I long to see most in heaven.
May our heavenly Father grant that we meet againas healed brothers in Christ.
Your son, Francis
We are each the sum total of those who have invested in our lives.
Many hearts and minds have seen this book to its completion; and to all I am indebted. I pray always your labor is not in vain and that I may be a good steward of the abundant grace I have received.
As this book is being birthed, I want to first give thanks for my praying, intercessory mother. Her persistent entreaty before the Throne of Grace is why I and my four brothers and sisters are Christ-followers today. As she would often describe her passion to pray in a thick New York accent, “I’m praying my brains out!” Thank you Mom for pouring out your mother’s heart on our behalf and lifting our names before God each day.
Whatever hope I have of seeing my father again is largely based on the persistence of my mother’s prayers. As all of her children and spouses are still actively pursuing their relationship with Jesus for now more than 35 years, then perhaps prior to my father’s untimely death he allowed God to come into his life as well. It took me half a lifetime to even want this.
There are also so many people who helped make this book a reality, and to whom I give my heart-felt thanks:
To my beautiful wife, Suzie, who heard all that is written here during its many stages of painful development. You have been my friend and counselor throughout the healing process. I am who I am because of you.
To my godly daughters, Deborah and Havilah, who are now wives and mothers in your own right, thank you for your gracious hearts in forgiving me the many times I have asked, and covering the times I didn’t with your love. I am so very proud of you both!
To Natalie Eiferd for guiding the manuscript structure through its initial phase, and to Stephanie VanTassell who finished the process, getting the book to the printer. Both have both been faithful Creative Assistants, for whom I am eternally grateful.
The principal editor of Father Wounds was Tamara Johnston. Her invaluable insights have made the book far more readable and relatable to a broader audience.
Lydia Birks has been a diligent Pastoral Assistant and proofreader.
Hans Bennewitz did a marvelous job on the cover art and layout.
I want to especially express my appreciation to the Rock Interns who read and dialogued each chapter as it was being birthed. You were the face of the many wounded sons and daughters who will find healing within these pages.
Lastly, each word of this book was painstakingly recorded, often many times over, for the audio book. The two warriors who fought to finish this ecruciating process were Tass Souza and Caitlin LeBaron. I fear the sound of my voice may prompt them to write the sequel to this book entitled, “Pastor Wounds.”
But, most of all, thanks be to God, for “whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father…” (James 1:17a)
It is Your perfect love that completes me.
Francis Anfuso
francis@rockofroseville.com
Contents
Chapter 5—The Embittered Child
Chapter 8—The Performance-Driven Child
Chapter 11—Reclaiming Your Childhood
Chapter 12—The Search For Fathers
Someone said that the best books are written in a man’s flesh before they make their way to paper. If that’s true, then you’re in for a great read.
Francis Anfuso and his twin brother, Joseph, were born barely a year before their father was elected to the first of his five terms in the United States Congress. From the outside young Francis appeared to be a child of privilege. In reality, however, he was an emotionally abandoned, spiritually impoverished, virtually fatherless, fearful little boy. And as one might expect, by the time he reached his teens he was isolated and bitter, a soul on the run from pain that seemed to run faster.
Thankfully there was a third runner in the race, and in 1972 the grace of God overtook both Francis and his pain. He had run from one father right into the arms of Another. One might expect a “happily ever after” at this point in the story, but that’s not really how life works, and it certainly isn’t how Francis Anfuso works. He’s too keen, too inquisitive for simple endings and gift-wrapped solutions. Far from ending his journey, meeting Jesus started the 23-year old on a bigger one.
He began digging into God’s Word, asking questions, finding answers, then asking more questions. In fact, to this day, Francis can generate more questions on any given subject than anyone else I’ve ever known.That’s why you’re going to find this book so valuable. You see, my priceless friend hasn’t been afraid to question himself, to shine the light of truth into the shadows of his own soul, even when it meant discovering more wounds that needed healing.
Thankfully, Francis’ fearless searching has yielded far more gold than grief.
—George Brantley, Senior Pastor at The Rock of Gainesville
“I cannot think
of any need in childhood as strong
as the need for a father’s
protection.”
—Sigmund Freud
I bear the scars of a forgettable father and a forgotten son.
As the wounds of a friend are faithful (Proverbs 27:6), so the wounds of a father can rob your faith and steal your soul. The assault on my childhood would prove to be the deepest wounding of my life.
Decades after my father’s death, I am glad the once open sores have become the faint impressions of another life – even another person. The little, discarded boy is gone. He is vacuum-sealed in a tiny tomb of remembrance, buried beneath a mountain of “better” and not “bitter” recollections.
Even though my father missed the mark in a monumental way, I’m convinced he wanted to be a good dad. I sincerely hope we meet again.
As incomprehensible as my pain once was, so now is the joy of a healed heart. I have reclaimed much of my childhood. Once a prisoner of tormenting memories and an insatiable longing for a dad, my relationship with my Heavenly Father now furnishes all of the time and attention I need – affirming me, touching me, and showering me with every imaginable gift a son could want.
Now, many years after the battle for my childhood heart was fought and lost, I find myself an archeologist of sorts, carefully examining the remains of past emotions – the relics of relational ruins. At times, all I seem to uncover are the dead remnants of a irreplaceable past. At other more heartening moments, my excavations surface unparalleled revelations I will treasure for eternity, and far exceeding the value of the pain once inflicted.
As some of you read this book you will soon realize you too have an unclaimed lottery ticket from your childhood in the pocket closest to your heart. Though it will be unsettling to fully retrieve its priceless value, it will not be the sting of death that will trouble you, but the birth pangs of renewed hope.
It is the will of God, that what was stolen from you will be restored; not just in your own life, but perhaps even for generations to come – those who may yet rise up and call you blessed for your willingness to examine the inner chambers of your heartache.
My prayers go before you, as do the cries of other walking wounded who have traversed this well-worn ground before. Though history is cluttered with the cynical comments of many a broken son or daughter, we have the option of leaving our own epitaph. May, in time, your final salutation to the father who wounded you be filled with the same mercy and grace you have received.
It behooves us all to “… be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:32)
Francis
Anfuso
May, 2008
Many years ago, there was a Jewish boy growing up in Germany. He adored his father and wanted to grow up to become just like him. The family’s life revolved around their religious practices, and the boy’s father faithfully took them every week to synagogue.
When the son was a teenager, his family moved to a town in Germany where there was no synagogue, only a Lutheran church. The church was the center of town life—all community leaders belonged to it. A few weeks later the boy’s dad announced to the family that they were going to renounce their Jewish faith and join the Lutheran Church because it was good for business. The family was stunned by the father’s lack of integrity, that he was willing to sacrifice principle for profit.
The father’s insincere faith left the son bewildered and confused. Gradually, his deep disappointment turned into anger and then bitterness. An underlying rage would disturb the son for the rest of his life.
Eventually, the young man left Germany and went to study in England. As he simmered in resentment, he coined the now-infamous phrase, “Religion is the opiate of the people.” He used to be filled with faith—now he reviled religion as the drug of the mindless masses. It was then that he formulated a godless philosophy that would ultimately oppress almost half of the world’s people.
His name was Karl Marx, the founder of Communism.
Everyone Loved My Dad Except Me
My father’s picture and obituary made the front page of the New York Times. Masses of Brooklyn residents lined the sidewalks in grief as a police motorcade escorted our family’s funeral procession through his old neighborhood.
Shocked by the finality of his death, all I could do was sit huddled in a darkened limousine and wrestle with the tortured thoughts of abandonment and rejection. Unlike the grief-stricken people at the funeral, I was crying tears of confusion, not sadness.
Together as a grieving family, my mother, brothers, sisters and I spent what seemed like forever shaking hands with strangers. Thousands had stood in line for hours in the brutal January cold to express their condolences and then file past my father’s open casket. But that cold was nothing compared to the coldness I felt toward him.
They were crying for someone I had never known.
My father, Victor L’Episcopo Anfuso, was an Italian immigrant who had lost his own father and come to America as a small child. His first job, at 10 years old, was as a shoeshine boy in lower Manhattan.
He lived with his single-parent family in a cramped Brooklyn apartment where he had no quiet place to study. Exercising incredible concentration, he would sit in a corner facing the wall, pounding the books. He refused to let his circumstances hold him back, and his driven, demanding personality propelled him from the bottom of the world to the top.
He worked his way through school, graduating near the top of both his college and law school classes. From there, he began a successful law practice that would lead to a position as a municipal judge and then to five terms as a United States Congressman. At the time of his death, he had been a New York State Supreme Court justice for five years. He was arguably the most well known Italian-American politician of his day.
You would have thought that all of these achievements in his political career would’ve been exciting for me as a kid. But the reality of being his son was nowhere near glamorous. My twin brother, Joseph, and I were rarely included in any of the dynamic dimensions of his life. Only for extraordinary occasions did we attend political functions.
From the beginning, it was pretty clear we weren’t a priority.
Early in My Life, Late in His
As my father neared his mid-forties, his gaze was on Washington D.C., not on raising a family. So, when my mother announced she was pregnant for the fourth time, he insisted she have an abortion. She went but, as my mother told the story, returned home and gave whatever pills she had received to my father telling him to take them. A few months later, much to the disruption of his personal and political agenda, he became the father of twin boys.
When Joseph and I were born, my parents already had three older children, Victor—17, Diana—15, and Maria—5. Born late in his life, we were just a year old when my father was elected to the first of five two-year terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
At the age of five, my brother and I were sent away for two months to summer camp. We would go for the next nine summers. Those times in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York were the only light in an increasingly bleak childhood.
But not even all of those summer memories were great. I remember lying in bed—barely five years old—as all of the lights in my camp cabin were turned out.
I felt completely alone.
There was no one to tuck me in.
No one whispered a loving, “Good night.”
I would cry myself to sleep night after night and send letters home begging my family to visit me, signing them with a stick figure showing tears running down my cheeks.
But each night brought a little bit of heaven to earth. Cutting through the deafening silence came the sound of a scratchy phonograph record playing over distant loud speakers, “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.”
It was the soothing voice of Perry Como.
I listened to that same hope-filled song before going to sleep 60 times each summer for nine years—540 nights of my life. Looking back, I know it was God’s hand reaching down into the mangled life of an abandoned little boy and kissing him on the forehead. I didn’t realize then the significance of those four nightly minutes, but they really were cool water to my thirsty soul.
Why Does It Hurt?
Why are we wounded by the mistakes of our parents? Why did Karl Marx’s father’s decisions sabotage his son and have deadly conseq-uences on mankind? Why did the coldness and disinterestedness of my father not seem “normal” but the warm truth of a simple song by Perry Como touch my heart?
The truth is, you and I are wired for perfect love. God is the Father we always wanted; the perfect Dad each of us desires and needs. Anything modeled by our earthly parents that misses the mark of God’s perfect, selfless love can create a “father wound.”
My dad might have overlooked me, but my God never forgot me. My Father in heaven reached out to me through the Perry Como recording and so many other times throughout my childhood. He never abandoned me, not even when I would openly deny Him.
There are all kinds of parents. There are the kinds who deeply wound their children: absentee, abusive, angry, authoritarian, controlling, destructive, fatherless, passive, and performance-driven. There are also many good parents.
All of us would have liked to have had an understanding, in-the-game, cheering-us-on father and mother. But most of us didn’t. For the rest of my life, I’ll always wish I had a dad who was a player in my life; who visited a school I attended; who was loving and caring, instead of angry and controlling.
As a pastor, I’ve seen the damage parents have inflicted on thousands of people I’ve met and cared for. I’ve seen firsthand the messed-up lives and broken hearts left in the wake of selfish parents. But it doesn’t have to be like this. If you’re hurting from these “father wounds,” there really is hope. I know He can heal you because He’s done a miraculous work in my own life. My pain and healing have brought out my life’s passion: to let other people know that God can heal them of their father wounds, no matter how deep,
The Potential in Pain
Even if we don’t see it, God knows the potential we have because of our pain. It can be the strength and power to motivate us for good. He can transform the worst experiences we’ve gone through to give us full, healed lives that are able to heal and help others. He also never meant for us to live out our lives with gaping holes in our hearts. The miracle thread suturing these emotional wounds is that whatever happens, no matter how horrible, it will work for our good if we love and follow God. The Bible promises, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” [1]
All the wounds in our lives have extraordinary value when we allow God to heal us. They become the doorways to His one-of-a kind destiny for our lives. God doesn’t just make all things work for our good—He allows all things to mold us into the people He created us to be.
Without suffering, we would only be shallow representations of who God intended. French philosopher Albert Camus wrote, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.” I used to dread the emptiness of suffering, but now I honestly value the growth suffering has brought to my life. The long-term benefit of pain far outweighs the temporary grief it causes. All of history’s luminaries have been formed through the trials of life.
In the Old Testament, a man named Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery. But he refused to let that destroy his life. He spent 13 years allowing God to heal his broken heart. So when Joseph finally saw his brothers, he was able to forgive them. Joseph saw his life from God’s perspective. He told his brothers, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” [2] Through Joseph’s forgiveness, he was able to rescue his family from famine and preserve their descendants for generations to come.
The healing hand of our Creator can redeem absolutely everything we have gone or ever will go through. Jesus intentionally allowed Himself to go through, and overcome, every temptation we could ever experience so that we would know He understands each of our struggles. The Bible explains:
“Therefore, it was necessary for Jesus to be in every respect like us, His brothers and sisters, so that He could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. He then could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. Since He Himself has gone through suffering and temptation, He is able to help us when we are being tempted.” [3]
God isn’t worried that my suffering will cripple me forever; He’s fully confident that my struggles will help develop His character in my life. God even allows suffering to be so intense that we will do whatever it takes to get free. Freedom is part of our destiny—we were made for it.
And so is the passion to fight for freedom.
The same painful childhood memories that used to make me writhe now give me the passion to nurture and care for others. God now uses every hurt in my life to offer someone else hope. Before I was a Christian, I spent six months contemplating suicide every day; now I can share honestly and empathetically with people who feel hopeless and depressed.
Healing is For You
This is not unique to my life. God wants to heal you completely. He can use every sadness in your past to help someone in your present. Nothing is ever wasted in God’s Kingdom.
I am absolutely convinced it’s God’s will for every person to take what the devil meant for evil and see it transformed into good. The way to reverse the damage done in our childhood is to allow God’s Spirit and truth to heal our souls.
If I had wasted my life wallowing in the dysfunction of my childhood,I would never have experienced wholeness in my marriage and the happiness of raising healthy children. If I hadn’t received God’s healing, I would have passed on the same sorrow and pain to my own kids. Now I look forward to my children and grandchildren having a healthy start, not a mangled past. They’ll have their own challenges, but hopefully not the baggage I was unwilling to unpack.
God wants to do so much healing in each of our lives: “To all who mourn in Israel, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the LORD has planted for His own glory.” [4]
No one wants your ashes.
That is, no one except God.
He longs to exchange our miserable ashes for His magnificent beauty. Reclaiming your childhood is not a pipe dream. It’s God’s will for your life. If you can begin to wrap your arms around the possibility, God will make it a reality. He does it every day in countless lives.
The Absentee King
The Old Testament tells about a King of Judah named Hezekiah. Although he’d accomplished great things, later in his life he made a lot of foolish mistakes that would seriously cost him and his descendants.
Hezekiah had seen God do amazing things in his life. The Lord had rescued Hezekiah from an Assyrian king who wanted to destroy both him and his nation. The Lord had also healed Hezekiah of a fatal disease and blessed his life on innumerable levels. But instead of being humbled by God’s kindness, Hezekiah was filled with pride. In his arrogance, he voluntarily took an ambassador from an enemy nation, Babylon, to see the treasury of Judah—the entire wealth of the nation.
It was a mistake that would eventually lead to the destruction of Judah and to atrocities happening to Hezekiah’s descendents.
When the prophet Isaiah heard about Hezekiah’s foolish decision, he went to the king and prophesied that all of the riches of Judah would be taken away to Babylon. Isaiah also said that Hezekiah’s sons would become slaves and castrated into eunuchs. I can hardly think of a crueler outcome for disobedience than to see your own sons emasculated because of your poor choices.
But Hezekiah didn’t see it that way. His response to hearing that his own prideful display would bring judgment on his sons was shocking—one of the most hurtful and selfish sentences ever spoken.
Hezekiah responded, ”The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good!… Will there not be peace and truth at least in my days?” [5]
In essence, Hezekiah was saying, “As long as it doesn’t affect me, it’s fine. At least it’s not going to happen when I’m around.”
His reply was selfish and heartless—only caring about himself.
It’s been said that “bad news gets halfway around the world before good news gets its pants on.” If you and I have heard about Hezekiah’s incredibly selfish response 2,500 years later, it seems safe to assume that everyone in Judah heard about it, too. Including his son Manasseh. Hezekiah should have been his sons’ protector and defender. Instead, he was only worried about self-preservation.
The Violated Becomes the Violator
Manasseh lost complete respect for his father. When Hezekiah died and Manasseh began to reign as the king of Judah, he rejected everything his father stood for, including his father’s commitment to God. He gave himself completely over to do evil.
A father wound perpetuated a tragic response.
The violated becomes the violator; the abused becomes the abuser. Hurt people, hurt people.
Manasseh brought all kinds of immorality to his people because of his own personal pain. “He [Manasseh] did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, imitating the detestable practices of the pagan nations whom the Lord had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites. He rebuilt the pagan shrines his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He constructed altars for the images of Baal and set up Asherah poles. He also bowed before all the stars of heaven and worshiped them.” [6]
And Manasseh’s violations didn’t end there. “He even built pagan altars in the temple of the Lord, the place where the Lord had said His name should be honored forever.” [7]
“Manasseh even sacrificed his own sons in the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, and he consulted with mediums and psychics. He did much that was evil in the Lord’s sight, arousing His anger.” [8]
“But Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem to do even more evil than the pagan nations whom the Lord had destroyed when the Israelites entered the land.” [9]
Valley of Hinnom, when translated from Hebrew into Greek is Gehenna, where the word “hell” originated. After several generations of idolatry in the Valley of Gehenna (hell) just outside of Jerusalem, it was eventually turned into a city dump that burned day and night!
A father wound had once again sabotaged a child, a family, even a nation.
The fires of hell continue to burn around the unhealed father wounds of our past. But God’s healing power can smother the smoldering pain in our hearts, so that even remembering is no longer painful. It may take years for the finished work to be accomplished, but God promises, “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust…” [10]
Manasseh’s story continues with the Lord speaking to him and his people, “but they ignored all his warnings. So the Lord sent the Assyrian armies, and they took Manasseh prisoner. They put a ring through his nose, bound him in bronze chains, and led him away to Babylon.” [11]
We’ve all been led away from God by our wrong desires at some point. Hopefully we’ve also eventually woken up to the realization that we were enslaved to those pleasures. It was during this kind of low tide moment that the lights finally went on for Manasseh. “But while in deep distress, Manasseh sought the Lord his God and cried out humbly to the God of his ancestors.” [12]
This is so powerful!
Manasseh had one shot left. One final sane moment. One last clear thought.
“And when he [Manasseh] prayed, the Lord listened to him and was moved by his request for help. So the Lord let Manasseh return to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Manasseh had finally realized that the Lord alone is God!” [13]
God is so gracious! Do you realize that you can move the heart of God no matter what you’ve done? He is the God of the second, third, and fourth chance. “For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again…” [14]
What does it take for us to cry out humbly?
The Healed Become the Healers
I’m looking for a fight!
I want to tear down every stronghold in my life. I want to see God tear down every stronghold in your life, too. I want God to rip out by the roots every bondage and deception that’s hurting our relationship with God and other people. I don’t want to see anyone pass on wounds to others. I’ll have to fight to make this happen, but it is so worth it!
The Bible encourages us in this essential battle, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.” All of us are in the battle to pull down the strongholds in our minds—strongholds of fear, bitterness, selfishness, anger, lust, pride, depression, and unbelief. We can win when God is on our side.
In the Old Testament, even King Solomon, once considered the wisest man who ever lived, sabotaged his descendents because he refused to tear down the high places in his life, both natural and spiritual. The high places were spiritual altars Solomon erected to false gods where children were sacrificed. High places can still exist in our hearts where we either sacrifice our children’s futures or regain the ground we once lost in our own lives.
“Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abominable idol of Moab, on the hill opposite Jerusalem, and for Molech the abominable idol of the Ammonites. And he did so for all of his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice…” [15]
King Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, followed in his father’s footsteps and “appointed for himself priests for the high places, for the demons, and the calf idols which he had made.” [16]
Unless we tear down the high places in our hearts, we will pass on the bondages of our sin. The Bible explains how to overcome these spiritual strongholds in our lives, “Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” [17]
It’s time to regain your thought-life, both past and present.
It’s time to recover from the wounds you suffered while growing up.
It’s time to reclaim your childhood.
This is exactly what Manasseh did. After making a lifetime of horrible choices, he came to his senses. Manasseh was down, but not out.
“Manasseh also removed the foreign gods from the hills and the idol from the Lord’s temple. He tore down all the altars he had built on the hill where the temple stood and all the altars that were in Jerusalem, and he dumped them outside the city. Then he restored the altar of the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings and thanksgiving offerings on it. He also encouraged the people of Judah to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.” [18]
If it wasn’t too late for Manasseh, it’s not too late for us.
The Perfect Parent
Because I suffered serious father wounds in my childhood, I’ve found so much comfort in these words, “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.” [19]
I’ve claimed this verse for many years. God is different from our parents. He’s perfect—and perfectly able to meet all of our needs. He’s our Everlasting Father, head-over-heels in love with every one of us.
None of us had parents who were capable of loving us every moment of our lives. I’ve had to forgive my natural father a thousand times, even though he’s been dead 40 years.
But the work’s been done.
I’ve released him.
And although I used to hate him, now I really look forward to seeing him again. I sincerely hope to see him walking toward me when I get to heaven. I can’t wait until we meet again.
I have very few happy memories of my natural father, but the more God has healed me, the more I treasure them. I can finally stop focusing on the sad memories and instead remember the few times my father was the dad I wanted him to be.
I remember being a little boy watching TV with my dad. As we sat together, he would run his big, warm hands across my back. I can still sense how cared for those hands made me feel. For those few moments I knew he did love me. He did care, although he was usually too busy or distracted to show it.
It took Manasseh decades to reclaim his childhood.
But he did. It was possible for him, and it is for you, too.
No matter how much pain you’ve gone through, it’s possible for God to repair all that’s happened.
Let God heal your father wounds.
It’s time to reclaim your childhood.
Right now, forgive the parent who hurt you. Release the parent who abandoned you; who neglected you; who instilled fear in you; who embittered you; who abused you; who didn’t discipline you; who didn’t believe in you.
Forgive the parent who didn’t make you feel safe; who didn’t keep promises; who didn’t protect you; who didn’t play with you; who didn’t hold you; who didn’t make you feel special and secure.
You are not putting a stamp of approval on what your parents did.
But, it’s time to release them. It’s time to forgive. It’s time to heal.
Questions for Discussion
1. Describe what your father was like growing up. Could you use the words absentee, abusive, angry, authoritarian, controlling, destructive, fatherless, passive, performance-driven, in-the-game?
How did this affect you and your relationship with your dad?
2. Describe what your mother was like growing up. Could you use the words absentee, abusive, angry, authoritarian, controlling, destructive, fatherless, passive, performance-driven, in-the-game?
How did this affect you and your relationship with your dad?”
3. As you reflect on your childhood, do you feel that you experienced significant wounding? If so, describe how it has affected your life.
4. As you’ve explored the wounds of your childhood, how has the Lord’s healing of some of those wounded areas affected you?
5. As you’ve experienced the Lord’s healing in certain areas of your childhood wounding, have you been willing to minister to others? If so, how has that affected your life and the people you’ve reached out to?
“Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes.”
—Victor Hugo
Kathleen Maddox ran away from home when she was 15. Her mother was strict, overbearing, and cold. When Kathleen’s father would try to be affectionate toward his wife, she would push him away, telling him he was “vulgar.” After years of suffocating under her mother’s control, Kathleen had enough and ran away.
Now that she was finally free, she could do whatever she wanted. She drank too much and had promiscuous sex. When she was only 16, Kathleen found out she was pregnant. She ended up having a son who never knew his father or had a real father figure. Kathleen was a terrible mother. She would leave her son and disappear for days or weeks at a time. Eventually, she was convicted of armed robbery and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.
Her son was then sent to live with distant relatives who didn’t even really want him. His new dad called him a sissy and dressed him like a girl for his first day of school, saying he wanted to teach the little boy to act like a man.
A few years later, when Kathleen was paroled, her son came to live with her again. But she kept living her life without any concern for her young, impressionable child. She would drown herself in alcohol every day and sometimes sell her body for money to buy more. Before long she lost custody of her son. He would spend years being shuffled through reform schools. But the schools weren’t any better for him—in one school, both older boys and guards sadistically sexually abused him. When he had the chance, he ran away.
At 18, he was a legal adult, so he was released into society to fend for himself. For the next 15 years, he was in and out of prison for stealing cars, pimping, and transporting prostitutes from one state to another—he also got extra time for assaulting and sodomizing other inmates.
After he was paroled, he gathered a group of about 50 college graduates, pushers, pimps, and Satanists. Over the next two years, they would see him as a mentor, lover, father figure, and even Christ-incarnate.
Together, they went on one of the most horrific crime sprees of the 20th Century. He led a chain of barbaric, highly publicized crimes, including two-dozen murders and ritualistic killings. His followers have now been in prison for over thirty years and will probably never be paroled.
Charles Milles Manson was an abandoned and rejected child born to an oppressed mother—a child who was so filled with rage that he grew up to lead a sadistic gang of other abandoned rejects to strike terror into an entire nation.