A post, dedicated to my earthly Father, also named David Ferreira.
We quite often come across posts and sayings sounding something like "We base our understanding of God the Father on the relationships we have with our earthly father." There, or there about. Statements are then made that absent fathers are the result of the kids having a hard time to accept God… There, or there about. You get what I am trying to say…
My father was born in 1949. And I enjoy listening to his life story, over and over again. In 1980 his life took a turn. Prior to this he lived a normal life with great potential for a very prosperous career. He had a brain surgery in 1980, the main artery to his brain popped. As this happened, he could see how his soul was lifted out of his body. He then went down a deep dark tunnel and entered an area of a fire pit, with thousands and thousands of people; he saw the people being devoured by fire and worms, and as soon as there was nothing left of the body, the body would appear again, just to be consumed and devoured by fire and worms again, over and over and over again. He thought this was it, his eternity would be in the pit of fire; he saw a bright light approaching him, it was so over whelming that he couldn't look at it and fell face down on his knees. He then heard a thundering voice saying "Your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more." He was then shot up through the same dark tunnel and found himself in his body again. He survived the operation and the complications it had, it took him close to 3 years to fully recover, he was basically a baby, to be fed, bathed and nurtured by my loving Mother. After this encounter he has been living a holy and dedicated life towards God.
This brain surgery has left him with severe epilepsy, sometimes having 8 fits a day. He explains often how he could feel when an attack was coming, and he was left helpless, there was nothing he could do. Then on one day in the early 1990's he could feel an attack coming, he cried out to God and the Holy Spirit told him "I have given you the power and authority to beat these fits, Fight it." My father and mother started praying in a warfare manner and the fit never came about. A few hours later it came back, again my father and mother went into warfare and by the Name and blood of Jesus it was conquered; and since that day he never had a fit again.
I don't want to lie; my father was a difficult man. He did not take nonsense from us. He never physically abused us, but you will get a proper hiding every now and then, most of the times we deserved it, okay, no, we deserved every single beating… LOL, and half the things my mother had to hide from him, because had he known we what we were up to, oh my word, Lord have mercy.
We never grew up with abundance, but never lacked anything either. We had an average life of a middle-class family, or at least that's how it felt for me.
So, I was born in 1980, yip, around the same time my father had his brain surgery, and was a baby himself. There I was, newly born, without a father, who couldn't play with me or give me any attention, in fact the attention I could receive from my mother, was occupied by the time fending my father. That's "rejection 101" for you. My sister was around 9 years old that time and she basically raised me the first few months, God bless her loving soul.
I am not holding any grudges against my father or my mother for this, it was outside of their control, they were both, understandably, in survival mode.
Our characters and sub-conscious minds are shaped by such events though, even though it was not my parents' intentions to have me enter the world rejected, but it happened, it could not have been avoided. It had an effect on me, and took me 40 years to realize it. I never had a relationship with my father; mostly hello, bye and happy birthday. When my healing process started 5 years ago, I had glimpses of those days, I mean, memories of a new born baby; that can only be God pointing out something I need to address. Then one day I got the courage together to speak to my parents about it, it is a known fact, but I doubt anyone has ever thought of it the way God showed it to me.
I told my father how it made me feel as a child, that I didn't have father or a mother in my baby years. I was deprived from my parents for the first 3 years. I don't blame them in any way, that does not mean it didn't happen the way it did. I told him how it possibly affected me as I entered adulthood, and the effect it had on our relationship. I told him that God showed me glimpses of those days, I came to tell him that I forgive him, without expecting an apology or an explanation. He had no control over it, but it did have an effect on us, and possibly the whole family.
Since this day the bond between my father and myself has grown beyond measure. I have learned to respect him as he is, he has grown so much in the Spirit since our teenage and young adult years. I honor his commitment and fear towards God, I look up and adore his relationship with God. I can openly speak to him about anything, and more precious I can chat to him about God. On numerous occasions I was blown away by some kind of revelation God has shown me, then he would go and fetch his note book from the 90's and show me similar revelations he had those days, and we can talk about it for hours.
I am sitting with a throb in my throat as I am writing this, I am leaving our precious country, and with it I am leaving my loving father and mother.
So, let me go against the grain of the intro and statement this post started with… Very valid, and most likely true in so many instances, but GOD!!! I knew my earthly Father as well as I knew my heavenly Father, I didn't know either, at all. I had a 40-year opportunity to get to know my earthly father, staying in his house for 25 years. And to be honest with you I do not base my relationship with God the Father on the relationship I had with my earthly Father, in the contrary it is the other way around… I got to know my earthly Father due to the relationship I have with my heavenly Father. My heavenly Father has stepped into my life and turned EVERYTHING upside down, it started with restoring the relationship between me and God the Father, and because of that everything else just followed the natural cause and flow of things, including naturally loving my parents as they are, honoring them for the life they have given me.
God's first priority is to restore you to Himself, the rest can wait, He is your first love and your priority need to align to His. Once you get to know God, He will start pointing out events in your past that need to be addressed; it might be forgiveness without getting an apology, it might be repenting for something you thought is silly and petty. It's your journey, you story, God will show you.
Then, I know there are some of you whose parents might have passed away and you think it is too late to fix things, or any other person you have lost contact with, so it is not possible to forgive.
Don't let that be an excuse, you are going to allow it to keep you in bondage? In my process I had to forgive people and repent and apologize to people i have lost total contact with. It is coming to the state of forgiveness, whether the person is there or not, you set them free of any "error" or offence towards you; or repent in a prayer when God has revealed when you have offended someone. Understand that the offence you caused most likely offended God too, "Father, I was wrong, please forgive me for hurting your child."
Show remorse for the pain and tears you have caused.
Make that call, get connected to your heavenly Father, seek Him with everything in you… I promise you the rest will follow.
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