There is a huge part of my story that I don’t like to share with people, especially the internet, but this past year I have learned and seen the beauty in vulnerability and how the Lord blesses it. There is no way to gracefully to say this, so I apologize for being so abrupt about it, but here it goes.
Community
I lost my dad to suicide last January. I don’t like to include the s word but its the truth and i don’t feel like I am owning my story if I leave it out. I have insecurities about sharing this part of my life because I don’t want people to feel sorry for me or judge me or treat me differently. I struggled a lot at first with talking about it to anyone because of those reasons. No one knew how it felt, know one could relate to me. But Jesus did. I started to journal my thoughts, questions, feelings, prayers, and anything else I could think of. I would record instances of the Lord’s faithfulness that I could see each day as proof that he didn’t abandon me during the most difficult part of my life. He was right there. I also felt it physically from my community that surrounded me from the second I found out. Some of my friends came to visit me the next night at my house in Athens, which is 2 hours away from school. They drove up, stayed for a couple hours then drove back, for me, just to sit with me. Today I still get overwhelmed about this. They will never know how much that meant to me. That night they showed me the love of Christ and I will never forget it. I started to realize the power of community, the body of Christ that supports me and loves me no matter what. When I came back to school I had a letter to open each day for over a month. My community didn’t want me to feel alone. When I am missing my dad I will go back and re-read all these letters. Once again, those people will never know how much a simple letter meant to me a year ago and what it still means to me today. I hope and pray that I will be there for them like they were/are for me.
Identity
Identity became a big thing in my life. I had lost a significant person in my life, and I was always a daddy’s girl. People would tell me that I was my father’s daughter. So what do you do when you can’t be that anymore? The Lord revealed to me that I am still my Father’s daughter, my Heavenly Father. He continued to reveal that I still had someone to run to when I was upset. Someone that will love me unconditionally, that is always eager to listen to me and to talk to me. That is so ready to comfort me and dry my tears if I would let him. All the things that a daddy does, that my daddy did for me. I am a daughter, a daughter of my Heavenly Father, a daughter of the King. The word daughter became my identity. I wrote it on my bathroom mirror so I would see it multiple times a day. Then I decided that wasn’t enough so I got it tattooed on my ankle. My identity is permanent and is never going to change because my Father never changes. It is a constant reminder that I am not fatherless.
Beauty
Since my dad’s death, the Lord has also given me passions, which I think are tiny glimpses of the beauty that I know will come from this brokenness. I have a desire to help suicide survivors or anyone that has been affected by suicide. I have no idea what this looks like right now, but that’s alright. The Lord has given me this desire and he will allow me to use it when the time is right. Another one is that I have a desire to go to the fatherless, the orphans, and let them know that they are loved and that they have a Father. They are daughters (or sons) just like me. The Lord has allowed me to do this in 11 different countries starting in January.
John 1:12-13
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
Galatians 4:6-7
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
