Those of you who have been following this blog for a while have heard bits and pieces of the story with my father. My biological father passed away when I was a year old. I grew up with my amazing grandfather as the male influence in my life and when I was eleven my mother remarried
It took time for me to become comfortable with the idea of seeing him as my dad, a problem that I recognize was solely on my end, but now I don’t see it any other way.
Over the last few years as I have finally started to process through the loss of my biological father I began seeking out more information about him. To my disappointment, he was not the perfect man that I had set up in my mind. He was flawed, as we all are. He drank. A lot. He did things that, as a dad, I would scold other men for and he died because he wasn’t willing to change his lifestyle the way the doctors told him to.
As I was listening to the story of another guy who was trying to paint a picture of his late biological father as a good man (though he was not), I realized that I, in my own way, was doing the same thing. Despite my upbringing with a grandfather who taught and trained me in my formative years and, later, a step-father who taught me what it meant to be a good dad through sacrifice and adoption (even though it was not a legal adoption), I felt like I had to identify with my deceased father to keep his memory alive, but I’ve learned that I don’t have to hold on to that past. I can keep the family name and work to leave a redemptive legacy because of the influence of two other godly men in my life.
Just wanted to share. Happy Father’s Day!
Ancient Abandon 