Things happen for a reason

We've all heard this expression, that things happen for a reason. But sometimes I wonder why certain things do happen, why do we have to go through things that we go through? Sometime I wonder why things happened to me like they did, and sometimes as a teenager, I used to wonder why did I have to go through some of the things I had to go through. While I don't have an answer to any of these questions, I do know that there was a reason I had to go through the things that I went through.

To start with, a little about me. I grew up with an absent father pretty much my WHOLE life. Drugs suck. Simple as that. I remember as a kid waiting in the windows days upon days waiting on him to come home, and I remember telling my mom to "Wake me up when daddy comes home." Needless to say, sometimes he'd be gone days even weeks on drug binge. I remember being so sick as a kid worrying about my dad, and wondering if he was dead somewhere, or if he even cared about me. I often also felt that sometimes it was my fault, like I wasn't a good enough child for him, or that I had done something wrong to make him to not come home. This isn't an easy thing to share, honestly. I've held on to some of these feelings for a very long time, and honestly I'm tired of holding on to it. But anyways. I remember the day that my mom had finally had enough of my dad hurting his family, that she told him she wanted out. My dad sat me up on my nana and papa's porch with his box full of things and he told me that my mom didn't want him around anymore, that she was kicking him out. The me now says "Go mom!" But the me then, the little 7 year old was so confused as to why this was happening, and how were things going to change. So for a while after that I didn't see him all that much, but every time I did see him, he had something new for me, but the next time I would go over there, it'd be gone. Now I know where my things would go to, he'd sale them for drugs. I remember the first step mom I got. It was kind of an exciting thing, to be getting a step mom and two step sisters. Until it started to happen. I'm not going to go into detail, but some things happened to me by my much older step sister. I kept it in for the longest, and it's still something that I don't like to talk about.

Anyways, my dad and step mom number one got a divorce, and then my dad married step mom number two (he's still married to her) Skip forward to my senior year, it's Christmas time. I'm down at my dads, and my sister has went off to a cousin's house. So it's my dad and I there. He was in his room, and I went ask him a question, and I had noticed that he had taken a whole bottle of pain pills. He will tell you that this never happened, but it did. Right then and there, I knew I did not deserve the things that my dad had put me through. I wrote him a really long letter, and let him know that he was no longer a part of my life, unless he changed something. I never went back to his house. He would call me occasionally here and there, but once I finally made the decision to live for Jesus everything fell into place. The offer still stands to him to be apart of my life. And I do forgive him for everything that he put me through, but I will not subject my child to any part of it. I have held on to these feelings about this stuff for long enough. And I WILL not feel guilty about any of this.

I am an overcomer of my past. It will never have a hold on me!