Overcoming Father Wounds a 7-Day Reading Play by Kia Stephensናሙና

Day 3: Give ourselves permission to grieve what we did not experience.

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7

Next we need to communicate to ourselves that it is okay to grieve what was lost: our childhood, desires, innocence, hope, and memories. We don’t have to be superwomen grinning and bearing our pain. We can take the necessary time to grieve what has been lost. In fact, the degree of our wounds determines the amount of time we need to take to heal.

For years I never made mention of my wounds; they became my best-kept secret. Masterfully, I presented myself as the high-achieving success story. People often saw me as a go-getter, but that was only camouflage in a world that applauds productivity. If anyone ever looked beneath the façade, they would’ve discovered that I’d become a pro at looking confident when I was scared, happy when I was sad, and beautiful when I didn’t think I measured up.

Living like this enables you to talk yourself out of needing to talk about it at all—deceiving yourself into thinking, I don’t have a problem. You dismiss the sadness that periodically appears when you see a father lovingly interact with his daughter at Target.

You ignore the twinge of jealousy when a friend talks about her daddy. You reject the painful memories of your father-daughter relationship, all in an attempt to project an “I’m okay” persona.

It’s easier to keep your wounds hidden out of public view.

This way you can convince yourself a conversation about your pain is irrelevant and unnecessary. Deep down, you know it’s not. Undealt-with pain will never just go away. It lingers. We can try—unsuccessfully—to suppress it, but eventually it’ll resurface. Maybe you’ve already discovered this.

Whatever your situation is, I’m grieving with you. Know that my heart for you reflects the compassion God offers His beloved daughters. He cares about every tear you’ve ever cried concerning your father, and He grieves with you. As it says in 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” He knows the pain you suffered in this relationship is not your fault but rather a by-product of the sin in our world. There’s no way you could’ve caused or prevented your father wounds.

God knows the depths of your pain, and yet He urges you to move toward it in order to be healed. He knows that though what happened to you is extremely painful, it’s not the end. Nestled deep within your ache lies resilient hope.

In what area of your father daughter relationship do you need to grieve?