The Father Wound

Since it’s Father’s Day on Sunday here in NZ I thought I would post my piece on fathers today, which I wrote a while ago in response to how God worked in my life to address my ‘father wound’. You may or may not have heard of the term ‘father wound’ before. This refers to any emotional scars which we may be carrying as a result of early negative or perceived negative experiences with our fathers or father figures. These may be things that we are not even aware of and does not mean that our fathers didn’t love us or that we shouldn’t love them. We can also have wounds from our mothers too, but for some reason the father wound is often more significant and is often why we are unable to see God as a loving father figure.

This piece is not about attributing blame, but to make us aware of where some of our negative emotions and traits may come from and to forgive and try to heal from them. Our parents usually do the best they can or the best they have learnt for us, but are often not capable of giving us the love we need as children as they are only human and also carry their own wounds. I have suffered from father wounds which I did not even know about until God revealed them to me when I first became a Christian. I did a lot of my healing back then, but it is an on-going process which is continuing even since my dad died in December 2018.

I always thought I had a good upbringing, but I was plagued with anger towards my parents from a young age and depression as a teenager. I always felt guilty about the anger and thought there was something wrong with me. At quite a young age I became very promiscuous and binge drank alcohol to try and make me feel better. I loved travelling too as it took me away from the anger I felt at home. I also liked to get good grades and achievements to feel good about myself.

Here are some more signs that people may have unhealed father or mother wounds:

• Low self-esteem or self-confidence
• A tendency for people pleasing or approval seeking
• Frequent bouts of anger
• Never feeling loved/appreciated in your life
• Uncomfortable seeing God as a Father
• Difficulty making choices for yourself
• Choosing partners who remind you of your father/mother
• Distrust or intimidated by men or authority figures
• Perfectionism
• Feeling cheated out of your childhood
• Wishing/praying that your parents would change
• Addictions to numb your feelings
• Sexuality issues
• Feeling empty inside

With God’s help, I realised that I behaved the way I did because I was hurting from a betrayal from my dad, which went on for many years as I was growing up. He had a long-term affair with one particular woman and many others before that one. My mum was aware of it and so it seems was I, without really understanding it at the time. That is why I was also angry with my mum. In their minds, they were doing the right thing by staying together for the sake of their kids, but by not explaining it or reassuring us of their love it was harmful in a different way. Fortunately, with God’s prompting I was able to talk these things through fairly openly with my parents, to aid the healing process, but this is not always possible and is where God and counsellors can come in handy.

This is only one of many ways that our fathers (or mothers) can hurt us without even realising it. It can be a seemingly small thing such as being emotionally distant and never saying ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m proud of you’, or it can be a huge thing like physical or sexual abuse. These things can leave us with a constant feeling of not being loved or appreciated, which only God can fully heal as he is the only one who can love us like a perfect father. However, because we have these wounds from our earthly fathers, it is often hard for us to see God as any different. We may see him as distant, uncaring and authoritative when actually He is the opposite and wants to be close to us in perfect relationship. The story of the Prodigal Son in the bible shows what kind of father God actually is (Luke 15:11-32) – loving, generous, gracious, forgiving and always waiting with open arms for us to return to Him.

Just before my dad died I was able to pray with him and now believe I will see him again in heaven, which I shared at his funeral. Then the year after he passed away, God led me into further healing by prompting me to contact his mistress to forgive and share my faith with her. I’m sure my journey of healing will continue in the future in different ways, as we are only fully healed when we get to heaven. Search on You Tube for ‘God’s love letter for you’, which is a letter from God the father to all of us, filled with biblical truths. Please let it soak deeply into your soul and believe it, let Him heal your wounds from the past.