Sunday, April 14, 2019

Father Figure

Why is it important to have a Father in your life? A Father is known to play an authoritative role. They are the Super Man of the household, they are the bread winner, they are the pillars in the development of a child's emotional well-being, the list can go on and on. My journey lately has been interesting because the word "Father Figure" has been really pressed onto me for a while. What is it that you want me to talk about Lord? Why am I having such a difficult time putting the words together? This specific topic took awhile for me to process through because of how it makes me feel. I knew it wasn't going to be easy. But thank God for the Holy Spirit, I know that what I'm about to discuss can talk someone's life. That is the goal of this post.

"I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations." Jeremiah 1:5. I had the privilege of having my Father in my life. Even though he was a part of my life, there was a lot emotional distortion that I saw growing up. Dad's create the gold standard for future romantic relationships. In my Korean culture, you rarely see any physical emotional interactions; hugs, kisses, holding hands etc. To be honest, for the 29 years of my life I've never seen my parents even hold hands or even kiss! Crazy right? The only thing I saw was maybe my father put his arms around my mother while they had to take a family photo, but that was about it. A daughter's first love, first starts with their Father. I unfortunately was not able to see that growing up. Money and success was shown as "love" to me. As long as there was food and a roof over our heads, that was love. Being raised in a different generation where I've longed for certain affections, my Father had a hard time providing emotion needs when I was a little girl. I never understood why because I would see all my friends have their father's call them, there little princess. All he really said to me was, do well in school, don't eat too much and provide for your Father when you get older. Those were probably the only thing he has mentioned to me.

Young girls depends on their fathers for security and emotional support. A Father Figure shows his daughter what a good relationship with a man is supposed to be. I remember when I was about 5 years old, I was so excited for my dad to show me how to ride a two-wheel bicycle. It was the closest I've ever felt with him. He held me tight so I won't get hurt, he made sure I kept my balance and held onto to me. The moments when I lost my balance, he was right there for me to fall onto his arms. That moment meant a lot to me because I felt protected from my Father. He kept me safe the entire time so I won't fall and get hurt. He did what a Father was supposed to do. Protect. He was demonstrating his protection by teaching me the basics of how to ride a bike. I realized when I was younger, it was much easier to interact with my dad because I was young and didn't really know any better. Now that I'm older, you have a better understanding of life and you experienced enough, I felt as if it was harder for me to open up to my dad and also to express certain emotions because I was not able to receive any of that when I was young. So growing up, I wasn't as expressive towards others. I didn't like when people hugged me for so long. I wasn't around physical affection. I thank God that he's been working on me in this area to allow my emotions to be more expressive and be more open. I'm still a working progress.

I longed for my Father's love and affection. I was seeking those emotions from other men in my past relationships. I was attracting certain attributes my father had, in men and always ended up damaging my heart. The way a Father behaves towards their daughter is key. Loving fathers who provide praise, support and unconditional love give their daughters the gift of confidence and high self-esteem. Respectful and supportive fathers teach their daughters to expect that in their relationships. Don't get me wrong, my Father did the best he can to raise my sister and I. Our language barrier also had a lot to do with it as well. As much as I don't want to bring culture into the equation, it really did have a lot to do with why I was built the way I was. Growing up the way they think and how they perceive life was very challenging. The language would go something like this, "Oh Jane, you would look so much prettier if you were skinnier". I mean.... when I'm about 12 years old, chubby with Harry Potter glasses, I would take that pretty personal because that's the age where I'm trying to figure myself out, as a woman! But as I got older, I realized, that's honestly a normal conversation. Those type of conversations were even coming out of my parents mouths! Sounds crazy right? But that was the norm to Korean culture. So growing up that messed with my mind because I'm thinking I had to loose all this weight. When I was 17 years old, I went to this Christian Summer Camp with my high school friends. I used to go to a lot of camps when I was younger but this one specific camp changed my life. On the last night of prayer, I remember just crouching down on the floor and praying. A nice lady came over to me and praying for me. She started prophesying and when she laid her hands on me, I felt a sense of relief. All the heaviness from my emotional demons were being release. I was able to breath again. I remember saying, "WOW I'm delivered!". At that moment, I knew I was delivered from my insecurities, body image, appearance, EVERYTHING! There was a huge spirit of joy. I remember just crying for joy afterwards because I knew God healed. Don't get me wrong, I still had that battlefield time to time but I can confidently say, I can walk out a feeling comfortable with what God has given me. He created me a specific way and I love everything about it. Fashion and beauty is so interesting to me because this shows me how to create my own art through clothing and also through modeling.

At a certain age, most girls feel less than confident with their bodies. I always had this battlefield with my body image growing up. I was always tall and thick. I always had a difficult time finding the right clothes that fit me. A lot of the clothes my friends would wear, I was either overweight or too tall to fit into them. My dad always called my sister and I, "PIG" growing up. Til this day he still calls us that. As I got older it just became a nickname that he called us. Every time I wore a dress and or anything nice, I would never hear a compliment, when deep down inside, I longed for him to call me his beautiful daughter. Girls with poor body images may isolate themselves socially, thin too much into the way they look and loose confidence. I thank God, I never got to that extreme but I was not happy with the way I looked growing up. While Father's aren't the only people who influence the way their daughter view their own bodies, they do play a very important role. Not only do young girls take in the way that fathers speak to them about how they look, they are also influenced by the way their fathers speak about other's appearance. "Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself." 1 Corinthians 6:19.

I luckily, had the privilege of growing up with a Father but there we're a lot emotional distortion that came with that. Til this day, my Father and I are currently working on our relationship. That is the most important part about this journey, continuously learning. Daughters need great fathers. It would be nearly impossible to overstate the importance of father-daughter relationship. Young women who have a positive relationship with their father achieve more and they make better relationship choices. I thank God for the experiences because I'm able to talk with confidence about this topic. If this was me years ago, I would not be able to have the right words to put this piece together. I know there are a lot of women out there that may be dealing with the same issues. Just know that you are not alone. We can do this together.



"It has never been easy between us but I wouldn't have it any other way. I love you Dad."

Your Pig, 
Jane





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