Never Too Late To Apologize

I just ran across this status that I wrote on December 10, 2012, the night that I participated in my commencement ceremony at Florida International University. I was really expecting my father to show up and support me that night, but he didn’t. I wrote this status venting about how I felt like he had let me down, again. He wasn’t there when I was born. He wasn’t there when I took my first step. He wasn’t there when I grew my first tooth. He wasn’t there when I graduated from high school. He wasn’t there when I got baptized. He wasn’t there when I got engaged. He wasn’t there when I graduated college. Even though he was in my life during sporadic seasons, he seemed to never be there for me during my greatest accomplishments… I was hurt.

Then to make my night even worse, my older brother, who hardly ever liked or commented on anything I wrote on Facebook, posted a comment under this particular status telling me that I was dead wrong for blasting our father on Facebook. He told me that he had showed our father what I wrote, and my dad was upset with me for doing it. My brother told me that our father’s response to my post was that I can forget about him ever supporting me in anything else in my life, because from that point on, our relationship was over. That comment felt like a deep stab in my heart, and my life just began to ooze out of me. You can see my response to my brother in the comment. I responded in anger, pride and bitterness. If my dad wanted to end our relationship, he should’ve called me and said it to my face. It’s not like we had the strongest relationship anyways. That night was the last time I would speak to my father in SIX MONTHS. Forget him! From that night on, my dad was out of sight, out of mind.

But then the Holy Spirit began to deal with me. Maybe I shouldn’t have blasted him on Facebook. Naw, it’s not like I said anything too bad–I tried to justify myself. I may have hurt him; Maybe I should call him to apologize. Naw, if he wants to reconcile things between us, he needs to call me first–my pride told me. I was in warfare for half a year. I did forgive him and I eventually got over the bitterness. But I struggled for months with guilt for how I handled the situation. Then one day in June, out the blue, my dad decided to call me and we had a conversation about that Facebook status. We vented to each other about how we felt, and we forgave each other. Our relationship has been slowly picking back up since then. Then, a few months later, I had a dream that my dad went to church and was excited about hearing the sermon. The Holy Spirit was showing me that my dad was going to rededicate his life back to God. (A prophetic word that I originally received back in 2009.)

The dream seems to be manifesting. Now, when my dad comes to visit me at my mom’s house, he gives me a warm and embracing hug instead of a “manly” hug. When he leaves, he doesn’t always wait for me to say I love you, sometimes he says it to me first. When we talk, he speaks about the Bible more than I do. He hasn’t gotten back into church yet, but he does confess faith in God through Christ and he did say he is making effort to put away his sinful addictions. Pray for our relationship, that it continues to grow and that God would remain the center of it this time. Jesus is coming back soon, and bitterness, hatred, unforgiveness, pride, etc. cannot be in our hearts toward anyone, if we plan on going with him.