Dysfunctional.

I never had a mentor or role model that I looked up to while growing up. Although, I did have situations around me that I knew I didn’t want to follow after. Being the first in my family to graduate from college is something that I take pride in. Knowing that if you want something in life it’s not going to just come fall in your lap, you have to get up and go get it. I often pray for God to break any generational curses in my family; to keep using me and paving a way for my future children. To give my children a different childhood than I had.

I just heard this little boy referring to his mother; “she knows everything.” When I pray about the generational curses being broken, I am also praying for my family. For God to provide them with peace, positivity, and direction. We think that parents know everything and whatever they do is right, especially during childhood. You grow up believing that whatever you see occurring in your family is healthy, although that’s often not the case. Most of the times our families are dysfunctional, and we aren’t even aware of the dysfunction going on right before our eyes.

I am around children majority of my days. I catch myself calling some children bad, when in reality there are no bad children, but bad circumstances. A child not having their father in their life, parents being seperated and the child having to jump from house to house, a mother on drugs and not giving her child the love that she needs. These different situations will all support a child’s behavior to change. When our parents don’t love us, we try to become the kind of child we think they will love.

As I am currently volunteering at this orphanage, my heart is heavy for these children. They are so content and happy, without yet realizing their circumstances. I 100% stand for current circumstances not defining one’s future; born to a teen mom and a dad in the streets, the odds were against me. I beat every one. The current circumstances of these children will definitely AFFECT their futures. Not define, but AFFECT.

Let’s stop running from issues in our lives. Let’s stop assuming that everything we see growing up is how life should go. Let’s stop carrying childhood emotional wounds into adulthood with us; into our relationships, and bleeding on the people who love us. Right now in my life, I am on the journey of learning more about myself, loving myself, working in my purpose, and becoming whole. My childhood emotional wound was my father being absent due to incarceration. Although I did have my stepdad in my life, a child needs their biological father’s love. Especially a little girl. I remember clear as day, one day during my freshman year of college; crying on my bed in my dorm room. I sat there wondering where my dad was, if he thought about me, if he was in his other children’s lives and just didn’t want to be bothered by me. Why me? I was lost and hurt.

The girl with daddy issues..I can count on both hands the amount of girls that I personally know with this same issue. As a child, I wasn’t in the position to do anything about my pain, I couldn’t even express the pain that I felt because I wasn’t aware of it myself at the time. Instead, I filled the void. I stayed in relationships with people that didn’t deserve me; just so I felt “loved,” rather than feeling alone. I was never shown what a healthy relationship looked like; what love was and wasn’t. Everything that I needed my father to pour into me, I was looking to receive from these guys. Although my father is still incarcerated, the difference is that I now have control of both my actions and feelings. As an adult, I am able to take control to heal the womb, and close it. I talk to my father on a weekly basis, and our relationship that we worked on and prayed about is something that I cherish. 

Do you know how easy it is to have power? Go to God and tell him, “here is my issue.” At times we have to humble ourselves, and ask God, along with others for help. I am a firm believer in both church and therapy. If you don’t have one, you need the other. Everybody needs help along the road to healing. For both developmental injuries, and leftover childhood needs. Without closing those wombs, individuals will find themselves forever bleeding on those around them; without even noticing.

Talk to God; tell Him what you need. Share with Him what areas you are struggling in. He’s waiting to hear from you.