Learning to trust God as father is not easy when you’ve been abandoned, rejected, or treated harshly by your earthly one.

As one whose biological father abandoned her and an adopted father treated her harshly, I struggled to trust God as my heavenly father. Do you struggle with that concept too? I wanted to believe what scripture said about his love, compassion, and mercy, but it wasn’t my experience growing up. And so, I struggled.

Estrangement takes a toll on relationships, especially if it’s with your father. That makes it even harder to trust.

In this episode, I’ll talk about these wounds and how to trust God as father. One who promises to never leave or forsake you. Let’s dive in.

Wounds from a father

Talk to a hundred women and you’ll find a substantial number who will tell you they have wounds from their father. Some are unspeakable as in the case of abuse and if that’s your story, I hope you will talk with a licensed therapist who can help you heal from that trauma.

Other women tell me they were abandoned and haven’t seen or spoken to their father in years. Never measuring up is what others say. And feeling unheard and unseen. Basically, living in the same house but without love or affection. Many are the wounds that a father can inflict upon his children.

And that leaves a world full of women with emotional pain, struggling to find love and acceptance. Women feeling that they aren’t good enough or feel they must do things they wouldn’t ordinarily just to fit in. This often starts as a little girl and might apply to your daughters too.

I want to help you find that love and acceptance from the one who will never abandon or reject you. One whom you can trust and that will be faithful to you. So, you can have the confidence of a loving father.

A Wound that Won’t Heal

Daddy Issues are what some describe when they’ve had father wounds. Those wounds are deep and painful, and they will not heal until you deal with them. Let me share a story to describe what I mean.

Recently, I obtained a self-inflicted wound on my leg. I jumped into my golf cart without seeing that the charger was still connected and punctured my leg on the unbreakable plastic. As blood ran down my leg, I was upset with myself for not being more careful.

Bandaged and ready to go, I made a second attempt – this time with the charger removed. All was well until a week elapsed and then twelve days and it wasn’t healing. Leg wounds can be painful and this certainly was that.

I did all the right things to clean it, apply antibiotic cream and bandage it but it wasn’t healing. It was getting worse. And a trip to urgent care revealed what I couldn’t readily see. That it was infected. Without the proper treatment of oral antibiotics, it would get worse and cause potentially life-threatening problems.

Happily, the medical care cleared up the infection and I am healing nicely.

The parallel to this is that when you have daddy issues or father wounds, healing is essential to getting well. Like the wound, the emotional pain often requires professional attention and that’s where I come in. It isn’t pleasant but it’s necessary if you want to heal and move forward without that emotional baggage.

My focus today is on those who have begun the healing process and are in a place where they want to trust God as father but struggle to believe his promises.

Why We Don’t Trust God

Whether you are newly healed, still in the process of working through it or long past the emotional pain, the ultimate step is learning to trust God as father. And that’s not an easy thing to do with those memories of a father who hurt you.

Now you may say that you’ve learned to trust God, but if you’re like me it comes and goes. I trust him when things are going well, but the moment a crisis hits I waver. Can I really trust him with this or that?

Estrangement is one of those times. A child has decided to end a relationship with you. A sibling hasn’t spoken to you in years. Estranged relationships come in many forms.

If you’ve listened to my story, you know that mine came with loss of family during and surrounding my divorce. And that on the heels of an abandoned biological father and an adoptive father that was physically abusive. It’s no wonder that I have a tough time trusting God as a father figure.

If your own father who is supposed to love and care for you doesn’t, how can you trust God to be a father that’s any different? Fair question.

I’ll bet you have your own stories of why it’s difficult for you. You aren’t alone. It’s a subject that most won’t talk about and so, like my wound, it festers and may become infected. But there is hope. I have learned to trust God as father, and I hope you will too.

Why We Can Trust God as Father

For a moment, let’s set aside the feelings and memories of our earthly father wounds and explore what a healthy father relationship looks like.

In an ideal world, you would desire a relationship with your father to have these attributes.

Now, to be fair, there are many fathers who hit on all attributes most of the time but falter occasionally. That’s human nature. If your father possessed these qualities growing up, you are truly blessed.

For those that didn’t, those daddy issues arise in various aspects of your life and relationships.

How Daddy Issues Appear

Wounds from a father can appear throughout your life in certain behaviors. Here are some that I encounter in talking with other women.

If you find yourself in this state, you are feeling some emotional pain from those father’s wounds. But there is hope. Let’s look at what the Bible says about a loving heavenly father.

What Scripture Says About God

Here’s what the Bible says about how you can trust God as father.

That’s just a fraction of what the Bible has to say about God, and I don’t know about you, but when I read those statements, that’s a father I want in my life.

Let Go of the Pain and Embrace the God Who Loves You

You know it’s hard to concentrate on two things simultaneously. Try it. Think about what you have on right now. What color is it? What fabric? And simultaneously describe where you are. Outside or inside? Dark or light? Did you lose focus on what you had on?

One of the secrets to letting go of the painful memories of your father is to focus on God as your father. Journal scriptures about who the Bible says he is and apply those to your life. Focus on those wonderful nuggets of truth and love.

When a painful memory arises, take one of those scriptures and recite it aloud. Learn to trust God in the insignificant things and when bigger issues arise, you’ll see his faithfulness there too. Learning to trust is a process.

Try looking back and seeing where God has functioned as a father on your behalf.

When you can see the trivial things, it builds trust and over time you’ll find you can trust God as father more easily.

One Last Act to Let Go

And it’s one we don’t like because it’s hard. You may have guessed it already. Forgiveness. Listen to an earlier podcast on this subject to help you process this because it’s a difficult one for everyone. This episode can be found at www.beckykolb.com/6

Once you learn to trust God as father, you’ll think less often about the painful memories you had with your earthly dad. And it’s possible that God has restored that relationship. That’s one of the miracles that he can do.

I never would have imagined that he would reconcile and restore a relationship with not one but both of my fathers. Forgiveness was the magic bullet and learning to trust my new heavenly father.

What’s holding you back from trusting God?

Where do you feel you need help to trust him more?

What do you need to let go of to build trust with God?

God holds your heart in his capable hands. He created you and desires that you trust him as your father. He is trustworthy and faithful. I am grateful that he loved me and you enough to make this relationship possible. Will you embrace him as your father and learn to trust him? He will help!

Until next time, keep building trust with the father that loves you unconditionally and has your best interest at heart – no matter what.

TOPIC: Podcast