I lost the 'quote OP' or whatever, so going by memory, and also reflecting what I pray about, is revealed to me through experience, reflection:
Trusting God means praying with humility to have whatever keeps me from trusting Him more fully, and obeying His will more regularly, removed, i.e. I ask His help in however I need it--leaving it to God to show me what I need, instead of coming to him with some kind of definite personal idea of what I need; I mean, I'm finite, He is Infinite, so the 'directional movement' needs, for me, to always be from me (humbly) to Him, and then from Him, all-lovingly, to me.
Yes, our relationship with our biological fathers, or other main care-giver, definitely has an impact on how we trust, who we trust, to what degree--and extends to how we perceive God.
I've noticed extremes with those of us who have been extremely abused. For instance, the extremely abused often see God as very wrathful or very permissve, like we internalize our bio-father's rage and then interpret God that way, or we can't bear any more wrath, not even the idea, so we have a fantasy of God like this really lenient parent who never ever corrects us--but does come down hard on others.
I pray, daily, regularly, humbly, to God for His guidance to help me be a better Christian wife, a more active member of Christ's Body, to feel when I'm skirting a dangerous line with one of my 'natural' stumbling blocks, like 'pride' in my intellect: that one can get me if I'm not really listening as I pray to God for that kind of 'ear to hear...'
God is Perfect Love but we have a finite sense of being loved or loving others, so God is patient if we're struggling to understand, and failing because of how we were raised...
YOu know what I found out recently?
It can be just as much, if not more, or maybe just differently, a stumbling block to obeying God and seeking His Guidance if we had a really 'right there', always showing us the way, never angry kind of father.
I have someone in my life... Well, someone I've known for over 30 years, and recently we reconnected, and it turns out that his daughter who is in her early 20s idolizes him, doesn't seem to be able to think any though or live in any way that goes against what her 'Christian, hands-on, heavily involved, never overtly angry father ever taught her', so he's patriotic to the extreme--sort of like God is 'under' The United States, and so is she; and she puts out hateful quotes about murdering women (those who have abortions and don't care at all--as though she could know these women's, ALL women's thoughts and feelings and prayers, et cetera, about this or anything else without their telling her, which they don't because she talks only to 'her own kind'),
and well it goes on and on, so she's like some cookie-cutter-conservative-Christian wife/daughter/woman.
It's disturbing.
I grew up without a hands on father, except for when he hit me, which stopped when I was really young because I could not stand to be hit, and I gave in FAST, and suffered from internalized anger...
And my father was not a 'strong role model' so I had to work out stuff alone or with what I read, and of course prayed, and I hurt a lot for lack of my father's love, my earthly father's love, BUT, you know what?
That left me a yearning for Fatherly Love, an openness to God as Perfect Father Love rather than exalting my earthly father either to the same level, or as this young woman has done--above God as Father.
It has given me something to reflect on, and feel blessed by, and thankful to God that He has patiently waited for me to see the blessing in what felt for so long like... well, not a 'curse', but a horrible missing out, and in its place, such hurt.
Along with that, because of God revealing the blessing? I have now seen other ugly things in my childhood differently, like how my Mom put my babiest sister's crib in my room, when I was 15?
I used to always feel and focus on that, how unfair, how I didn't have much of a childhood, how she abdicated maternal responsibility and put it on me (much sooner than 15), and now:
I feel so blessed!
That wasn't MY room that my biological mother put my sister's crib in: It was 'our' room; we are God's, both of us--and He gives and takes away...
So my babiest sister got a surrogate sister-Mom and I got a surrogate sister-daughter, and each of us were loved (by God) and loved in return (because of God).
I better stop here; I get excited at the growth, as I recognize more and more how my vision is clearing, and that clearing could only happen as I 'continued' to daily, throughout the day, prayerfully to ask God for what I needed to obey, to be a good Christian wife, sister, neighbor, member of His Body...
I trust God to always BE Love, and to remind me--as I have asked, when I forget--that nothing I have gone through or am going through or will go through could ever be for anything but Ultimate Good--even if I don't see that until I leave this mortal body behind, because I am God's girl, and God IS Love.
~ Carolyn
