A Forgiveness and a Freedom

Saturday's journal entry:

Dear God,
I am tired of Hating.

I woke up this morning, and thought about the diving meet I had yesterday, and the people I rode to the meet with--- my swimming teammates. There is one boy... Patrick [name omitted]. He reminds me of Dad... mostly because he wants to go into the Army. I have this premonition that it'll ruin him.

He's not the first friend I have that is going to into the military, I just have the same feelings for them that I do for him: they'll be monsters when they come out. People who are narrow-mind[ed], nationalist monsters who will be wife-beaters and child-abusers. It doesn't help that Patrick shows small signs of anger management problems.

I have looked at my feelings for the army, and the Police Force as well [they are two peas of the same pod, in my understanding] and, I have to say that my main rationale for these things is that my father became those things. He never really connected with me for years at a time, only took of the authoritarian and raised my brothers and [me] that way. he told me he never had a father, that he had ran out when he was born. to be fair, he never had a real chance to get it right. But i was so angry with him for how he felt he was entitled to tell me what to do when he hadn't yet established a love-based relationship with me. it was a chain-of-command, and I was made to be at the bottom, below everybody.

On some level, I feel like I'm trying to defend my father: "It's not his fault he always scared me into submission--the army did that to him. It's not his fault he couldn't apologize to me and love on me like i wanted him to... the Police Force did that to him." There were things that he subconsciously conveyed to me, I just didn't realize it at the time. He was trying to tell me, throught the gifts so expensive and elaborate, that he loved me. What I had gathered, was that he was too cowardly to say he was sorry, and instead triend to make me forget with the toys and video games. He couldn't tell me with his body that he loved me. He couldn't give me a hug everyday and make me feel welcom in his home, the home that was supposedly mine, too. Instead, I felt out of place. I felt like an unwanted guest. I was anxious in my own home.

The army is not to blame for this. Neither is the [name omitted] Police Department. My Father failed many times, but it is still not his fault. He still raised me. He's still alive. the person at fault, whom I'm not even angry at, is my grandfather, who ran away and left my dad without an example. My dad succeeded where his father failed: he stayed. He can't push past social expectations of the old way, where men were pillars of strengths and bastions against one another. He can't connect with me on his own. I have to break that wall.

I absolve the Army and the Police force of the sins of my father, for none knew what they do. In effect... no one is to blame.

I simply ask that You help me now in the next step of forgiveness: extending my hand to my father and replacing my anger and hatred towards him with compassion, patience, and understanding.

In Jesus name,
Amen.