How can I love my abusive Dad?

Hi guys. This is actually my favorite Christian channel and has been since 2015 (long-time viewer, and video liker, but I very rarely comment). I am dealing with a crisis right now. My “dad” died a few weeks ago, but I can’t even call him that, because he was not that to me. I read prayers with him in his last few days, and I have peace about his salvation. The man was NOT a follower of Christ and harshly persecuted me for my faith which began in 2012. On a spiritual level, he disowned me. He was determined to largely cut me out of his will (and my Christian sister) out of his will up to his last days. He treated my “brother” (I sure wouldn’t call him that) like a king, partially in reward to him, and I think, partially in retaliation against us. It was sick and unbelievably heartbreaking. It’s something that I never dreamed would happen. My sister still considers this man her dad, and is trying to remember him from happier times decades ago. I actually cannot see this person as my “dad” on any level anymore. I grieved and grieved in his last year, but I felt so few emotions after his passing that you may not think that I was related. I do not feel as though I had a dad who has passed. I seriously feel like I am orphaned. Like, I really feel like a fatherless person. I don’t even want to be reunited as true nuclear family with this person because I feel so negligible a connection to him. I don’t think that I even know what it is like to have a dad. I recognize that Father YHWH is my Heavenly father. But some way, somehow, is there some way that YHWH can bring me to an adoptive saintly father? Someone who would be like a humankind father? Because of the pain of the depth of rejection this biological parent, I think true reconciliation is not only effectively impossible, but also undesirable. I would not want this person to be my “dad”. I just cannot call him that. He was ashamed of me, and I have plenty of faults, but I have been a homebound, disabled Christian full-gospel believer who dedicated time to help ill children, and likewise I am ashamed of this person. I know that God has ways of fixing the impossible, so what, maybe could God do in this very severe situation? I don’t know associated Scriptural examples. I know that there are innumerable people who know Jesus very well who watch this channel. Thank you for your insights.

The reply: (this is Carol) I can relate, Dear…. I was afraid of my father until I was 13. Then I learned to hate him… He was gone for 3 years until I found the ability to forgive him – and start reaching out to the possibility that, now that he was in Heaven (for I knew he was) that we could someday meet again – and be at peace. That was 33 years ago. Wisdom and healing come with Time and Mercy and the Lord’s healing hand. I learned that I had to look BEYOND him – to what made him like that. To understand how Papa God saw him, and look through the filter of HIS eyes. (And Father God IS now my Papa…)

It’s something that will take the Lord’s healing hand, and Time. But what YOU can do to cooperate with Him is choose to forgive. You don’t have to like. Or love. Just choose to NOT hold bitterness. I just read the saying this morning – something like, ‘choosing to hold hate against someone is like stabbing yourself, and thinking the other person will die.’ Hate and bitterness are tools the enemy uses to open us up to all sorts of disease, pain and suffering ourselves. CHOOSING to push those thoughts away, CHOOSING to let Jesus take care of our feelings and heart – which need healing. And letting HIM be the ‘judge’ of what happened be enough…is what He asks of us. I always go back to the movie The Shack in times like that. There is a part there where the main character goes to Wisdom with ALL the reasons he DESERVES to hate the man who killed his daughter. And by most standards – he seems to deserve it. But the video shows so clearly the Father’s heart. The Father – who sees ALL of the things that made each of us the way we are, that drove each of us to do the things we do and ‘turn out’ the way we become. It’s hard, Dear. But it can, and must, be done – for your own heart’s sake and soul. I pray blessings of Peace and Comfort and Healing over you now. May the Lord of Kindness be your ever-present help in this time of need now. Amen.