He hugged me and he pulled me in and it felt strange. He patted me on my back and through the heavy rasp of his whisper he said “get in here”. To which I understood as his embrace. The gears of my heart that had been rusted still, began to creak emitting a loud indiscernible sound. One of which I didn’t know the origin. After group he hugged me again and another set began to move. I left group that night feeling “strange”. It wasn’t until I saw “the shack” that it all came into focus. At the moment when God appeared as a man and said “today will be very difficult and for this part of your journey you’ll need a father’s love” the tears streamed down my face. The lubricant those rusty ventricles needed to begin pumping again. None of this I knew at the time. This is when I realized how desperate I am to feel the love of a father. To realize that Papa isn’t some far off star incapable of being touched by me. It was Sunday evening that I kept wrestling with the foreign feeling of wanting to be held. I wanted to be hugged but not just by anyone, but by a man. I realized for the first time I yearned for a fathers touch.

I don’t know what it feels like to be held by a father. I don’t know what it feels like to lay my head on a fathers chest and sigh and cry. I never even knew I wanted to know. We often hear about women having daddy issues but it was in this moment that I realize as a man how deep that wound is for me. I’ve spent years working on my “mother wounds” and it has done wonders in my life. There’s been tremendous healing and growth that has come from it. I feel like God is saying “you’ve gone as far as you can go with that. I want to heal your father wounds now”. These wounds have had me hung up for most of my life and me not really knowing it. Yeah, i’ve written poems about the sadness of growing up w/o one and the effects of it on me as a man but what is happening right now is so much deeper than that.

I want to truly feel like a son to a father. That father wound keeps me from connecting w/ men truly. It keeps from letting men into the deep places in my soul. It’s caused me to isolate myself from them and to blame them the minute something happens that i don’t like. It’s kept me very guarded and on edge. First thing a man does that upsets me or hurts me I’M OUT! Even if not physically, you better believe that i’m making a list and it will come into play when it’s time to judge him for all of it. It makes me angry when they don’t respond to my texts, phone calls and emails. It’s this bitter little twinge that hangs on the tip of my fingers that drips like cold syrup. It’s in my fingerprint and I never could really wash it off. It makes it harder for me to forgive men and take responsibility when it comes to them. It makes me too sensitive and causes me to overreact. I’ve been dealing with every man in my life through the cracked lens which I wear from the glasses that were trampled on by my earthly father. When a person feels abandoned, angry and afraid, our primal instinct is to panic. Our primitive inclination for survival kicks in when we feel threatened. Even when the threat is viewed through a skewed vantage. God wants to heal that view and give me lenses of love.

W/ this revelation comes the sobering view of myself in this mirror. The heartbreaking realization that I need to step into the bigger shoes of being a better man than I am. For the first time I truly feel forgiveness for my father. For the first time I’m truly seeking forgiveness from Daddy. I’m seeking forgiveness from the men that I’ve either publicly or privately hurt in the process. If I don’t allow that wound to be healed i wont ever fully allow myself to be truly loved by a man therefore never truly loved by God. I wouldn’t let Him come near me to give me what I have been begging for. His comfort. His love. His embrace.

Daddy, come and hold me. Daddy I love you and I thank you for waiting on me. For loving me when I was so angry at you. I thank you for sending my brother to die for me. Thank you for bringing me into a family where I am loved and special and unique. Daddy, I love you.