A young girl is taught to look at her father as the example of the kind of man she is to look for in a partner. We are taught that our father is the only man we can always rely on.
Girls are taught to expect an unconditional love from our father. This is not the reality for many young girls worldwide. For so many the reality is abandonment, abuse, and hatred. Beginning at a young age I was aware of the harsh reality that my father was not giving anything close to unconditional love.
Growing up in that environment, I often wondered why my father didn't love me. I began to question my worth and value when I was about eight years old. My parents had just gotten a divorce and my father continuously pushed to receive unsupervised visits. During the unsupervised visits, I was forced to grow up quickly in order to protect my sisters from my father's abusive tendencies. Throughout the years of fear and pain, I began to believe the awful things my father said about me. I started to wonder if my own father didn't love me, then who could? I thought everything that he said about me was true. I started to blame myself for not being able to protect both of my sisters the way I expected.
Every time I would close my eyes, my father would be there reminding me of everything I grew to hate about myself. During my middle school years, I started to struggle with eating and self harm, but it was at it's strongest for my first two years of high school. I hid it well enough that only one person knew what was going on.
Eventually, I got to a point where I planned to kill myself and that was when I knew I needed help. That was the moment I asked God to save me from the darkness that I had grown too comfortable living in. The little girl who had been broken down started to get pieced back together. She started to speak truth and realized that her worth and value didn't come from the man who refused to love her. Her value came from the creator of every beautiful sunrise and each mountain top.
She started to believe that she was worthy of love and affection because she was loved so much that someone died so she could live. God reminded her every morning that she was not defined by what was done to her, but by what He says about her. God told her that she was fearfully and wonderfully made. She was powerful. She was victorious. She was an overcomer. She was beautiful. God reminded her that she cannot see the entire picture, but that he was there suffering with her in every moment. He told her that he would use use her story to reach others in their darkness. He told her that she was a daughter of the living God and no earthly father could ever amount to how much He loved her. He reminded her that this wasn't the end of her story and He only has plans of goodness and wonder.
This isn't the end. You are not your depression, anxiety, or abuse. God's plan is bigger than the pain of today.
