Today I’ve been missing my step dad. He’s been gone for several years, yet there are still days that I think about him more. It led me to recall how I would like to go the house, just to hang out and sit with him for a while. Sometimes he’d tell me crazy stories about his past or something he had heard or read that was interesting. Sometimes I’d talk his ear off. If he wasn’t interested, at least he’d usually act like he was. Sometimes no one said anything and we’d just sit in the kitchen together, or go out in the yard. I had been told a few times that it was hard to believe that he wasn’t my real dad, because of personality traits that we held in common.
I don’t know if I would have those traits if it weren’t for him. We are much more that just a group of genetic traits. The people and experiences that come and go leave marks, impressions, and even shift us from other possible directions or outcomes. Whether the relationship be good or bad, it has power to change at least bits and chunks of our lives. It could change the entire course. We have the power to leave good marks upon people’s live. We don’t always know who those people will be.
It’s funny how people tend to see their tastes and preferences as individual to themselves. I can see how many of mine have been cultivated by various experiences and relationships. I don’t know why my step dad didn’t write down some of the stories he told me.
The way I would sit in the kitchen with my step dad is how God would like for us to just come and sit with him. I can just enjoy His company. There is no pressure to perform any certain duty. It is just the relationship between a Father and his child. If you did not have a good parental relationship with your dad, as I did not have with my birth dad, you can still come sit with the Father. He can heal that too.
Melicia Evans 