Dear Dad, …I’m Trying

Don’t you know that I’m just trying to do my best?! Don’t you know of the struggle that is going on inside my heart?!

Oh, how it pains me, when you pull me aside and say how I am entirely missing the mark. You say how disappointed you are with me. You say how you hoped that I would do better.

Yes, I am flawed, and yes, I have my problems. I have weaknesses, and none knows it better than me. I see those flaws. I see those ugly things every day. Nearly every word that crosses my lips reminds me of those imperfections. My eyes hurt from trying to see past them every moment of every day. The pain is so close. Sometimes, so close that I feel as though I could burst.

I want to be free, and I know that someday I will be free. But right now that freedom is a long far way off.

Oh come, sweet freedom! Come and deliver me from this doubt and depression. Deliver me from this hurt and pain. Deliver me, for I am crushed under the weight of my own faults and flaws.

How inexperienced I am! And how much I have yet to learn! But all these things I know already. Why must you plant a billboard before my face, to remind me of the thoughts that are already too painful to bare?

You say, go here… and even now I am going.

You say, do this… and while you yet speak, I am striving to do it.

Somehow, I find the strength that I need — the strength to take your wisdom, and to practically apply it to my life. Somehow, I find the grace I need — the grace to receive your rebuke, and from it better my character.

I understand though. I see the pain that is in your eyes. I can hear the brokenness in your voice — though it is hidden far beneath the folds of your love. I can only imagine the anguish that is in the depths of your soul.

You have a right to be disappointed, and neither can you help yourself. How could you not help yourself? For though I am now grown, and to the world I am my own man, yet there is something in the heart of a father that never dies.

You fed me when I was hungry, cleaned me when I was dirty, clothed me when I was naked, and loved me when to my eyes the whole world was falling apart. And though I am now grown, your heart can’t help but break when you see me stumble and fall. A tear can’t help but fall when you see me act lesser than the man that you taught me to be.

As I ponder these things, I begin to see you in an entirely new light. I can see in your face etched a thousand stories of pain and suffering. Suffering that you went through because you failed to heed your parents’ wisdom. And now I can see your life through your eyes. Eyes that are full of regret, full of things that you would do anything to go back and change.

I am also seeing myself in a new light. I can see written in callouses on my hands, a hundred stories of labor and toil. Stories of the times that I ran from the weight of your words, and stories of the times that I ran toward their comforting and heavy embrace. And now I can see my life as it silently stretches out towards the horizon. I see an opportunity to live without regret.

This is not the end… I have many weary paths yet to tread, and many impossible giants block my way.

Neither is this the beginning… Oh, thank God for that! I do see progress. I do see some paths that I need never tread again, and some impossible giants that lay dead in my past.

This is the present. This is where I struggle, and where I fall. But on the wings of your wisdom, I can arise once more, and try again.

One day I pray that I may be just like you. Not because you’ve lived a life of ease and pleasure, but because your scars tell me you survived in spite of the pain and trouble.

Not because you are perfect, but because your failures of yesterday don’t dictate to you who you are today.

Not because you understand every twist and turn of my present trials, but because you love me through the midst of it all.