For years, I dreaded the arrival of Mother’s Day. Not because of anything about my mother, but specifically because I was tired of people looking at me, given my age, and then either wishing me a happy Mother’s Day or asking when I planned to have kids. I carried an unspoken shame because society said I should have been a mother, but my womb, heart, wallet, and so many other things said otherwise. Each year, I tried harder and harder to avoid people on that day, praying that if I stayed hidden long enough, the day would pass and no one would approach me with those wishes. Funny thing is, the more that I tried, the more texts I would get from former students or forgotten group chats, wishing me a wonderful day. This year, I didn’t even fight it; I just geared up for the texts and anxiously prepared to welcome my mother, sister, and niece into our home for brunch. With my longstanding angst towards Mother’s Day, I never anticipated that Father’s Day would have any type of effect on me. Well, yesterday proved that I was very wrong.

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Yesterday began like any other day, except that it was Father’s Day, and this time I was waking up next to someone who is actually a wonderful father. I kissed him and wished him a wonderful day. King had already stated that all he wanted to do was get a steak, game, and relax… and I was determined to ensure that he would be successfully able to do all that he desired. Little did I know that as I was getting dressed for my day, a planted seed was blossoming within me, and its full growth would knock me clear off kilter.

At service, Pastor Henry preached from Psalm 78, verses 1-7, and highlighted the responsibilities of a present father. What I didn’t realize at the time was that as he spoke about how a present father behaves towards his child(ren), I was mourning the loss of my own father. No, he wasn’t/isn’t deceased, but he was not present in my life, a void that I did not fully feel until yesterday. With each word that Pastor Henry spoke, a piece of me died inside as I realized that the absence of my father in my youth planted seeds of doubt and inadequacy that have kept me in a chokehold for my entire life. I mean, let’s be honest, if a father doesn’t want to be in his biological child’s life, that must mean that s/he is not worthy of anyone ever being in his/her life, right? Or at least that was the “truth” that left me paralyzed and incapacitated yesterday.

I am not worthy of love.

That’s not a question or an arguable statement; that is the truth that my father’s absence left me to believe. Even today, as I am two months shy of my 40th birthday, I still feel severely unloved, broken, and less-than because there is so much love that a father should bestow upon his child(ren) that I did not receive. That love serves as the building blocks for a child’s development, and since I did not receive it, the foundation on which my entire life was built is unstable and doomed to crash.

To paint a clearer picture, my father was reintroduced into my life back in 2009. My brother (his son) found me on Facebook, and once we connected, I was reconnected to that entire side of my family. Because my father was still paying child support and back support well past my 18th birthday, I knew that he knew where I was located and how to find me… but he never did. He never reached out to me; he did not care about me. Yet when my brother brought the entire family back into my life, I welcomed the rekindled relationships. I recognized the void in my life, and I was willing to try. There was always a part of me that missed those relationships and was willing to forget the pain of my past. However, one night last summer changed that for me, and ever since, I have chosen to step away from my father. When I think about the fact that my father intentionally and willfully chose not to be in my life when I needed him the most, I decided not to allow him access to this season of my life. Many may disagree with my stance, believing that as long as he is alive, I should grant him access to my life. To those people, I say, well, the same is true for me. I was alive for two decades, and he should have tried to have a relationship with me, too.

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I’ll be very honest, today is just as painful for me as it was yesterday. Feelings of being unloved, unworthy, forgotten, abandoned, etc. continue to sit with me, cradling me to sleep every night. Yes, I am well aware of what the Bible says about God’s love for me, but that does not change the fact that here on earth, those feelings feel very real. In so many ways, I am still that vulnerable four-year-old girl, waiting for her father to love her, to choose her. Sitting in my pain, I wonder where my life would be right now had my father been present in my life. Not only could the rape have been avoided, but with his presence, maybe the addiction to food, alcohol, and sex would have been absent. I will never know. What I do know is this: chronologically, I am almost 40 years old, but emotionally, I am still that broken four-year-old girl, a fatherless child desperately crying out for love.

Will you pray for me?