On this Throwback Thursday, I thought I’d share a post I wrote for another blog back in 2014. Some of you may remember this one, but for most of you, this will be your first time reading this.
As I was thinking through some ideas this week, I thought about how a father’s void affects his children and I remembered one way it affected me. Read more below.
While attending a housewarming a few years ago, I sat with two other young ladies and somehow we started talking about having kids. One of the young ladies who wanted a child asked me if I had children. When I said no, she asked if I wanted any. I think I shook my head and then she said, “there’s something to that.”
Well, little did I know, there really was something to that. In March, I was skimming
through “Battlefield of the Mind” and meditating on some of the scriptures Joyce Meyer references in preparation for a series of life classes I co-facilitated that month. I read the book a year or so prior for our Sunday school class, but interestingly enough, God revealed something different to me about myself during my study time. In the book, Meyer wrote that Satan begins to deceive us when we are young, “waging war on the battlefield” of our minds.
God reminded me of a time when I said that I didn’t want children because I didn’t want them to grow up without a father like I did. I was probably a pre-teen or teen when that seed was planted in mind and out of it grew branches of distrust, insecurity and bitterness. As a child, I began to believe that my children’s father would not be involved in their lives, so I decided (as a child!) that I wouldn’t have children. So the young lady at the housewarming was right because there was something to me not wanting to have children.
I’m glad God revealed that stronghold so I could one, see how manipulative Satan can be and two, change the way I was thinking. My only regret … I wish I realized this sooner.
——————————
Not having a father in one’s life affects everyone differently, but there certainly are effects, some that follow you into adulthood.
Say That, Girl! 