You Can Trust Your Heavenly Father. Psalm 123:2.

While Susan was swinging on her swing, I picked up a wad of cut grass.

“Don’t do anything, Steven,” she warned me. “My dad is in there watching you.”

I glanced at the dark window across the yard. How did she know he was watching? I couldn’t see anything. But she said it all the time. And anyway, it was just dry grass. I was impulsive. I threw it at her in spite of the warning. A few seconds later the back door opened.  

“Come here, young man!” Mr. Thomas shouted. I walked over to him, probably looking smug. He had yelled at me before and I didn’t take him too seriously. After all, I only threw mowed grass at his daughter—a pretty girl my own age—and the wind had blown all the grass back on me.

When I walked up to Mr. Thomas he grabbed fistfuls of my hair on either side of my head just above my ears. He lifted my skinny ten-year-old frame up until we were eye-to-eye. I did not make a sound.

“Who do you think you are, throwing things at Susan? If you ever do that again, I’ll break both your legs! Now, say you’re sorry!”

“But it was just grass and—”

He shook me back and forth and raised his voice. “Say you’re SORRY!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Now go home!” He dropped me. I landed on my feet and walked back to my house next door, rubbing my scalp.

I was in trouble often enough that I’d stopped telling my parents about it. For years I never told anyone that Mr. Thomas picked me up by my hair. My father would have been quite interested. What I did not know then was that Mr. Thomas’s abusive, but more or less harmless act was a dangerous sign of escalation. The next time Mr. Thomas got physical with me, it would be worse. Thankfully, before anything else happened, he and his wife abruptly sold their house and moved away.

One of the consequences of having a difficult father is that the experience colors your perception of your Heavenly Father. No matter how often people tell you that God is kind and merciful and loving and good and trustworthy, you may struggle to believe it.

I was raised by a great father. If you were not, let me tell you what that was like for me: I naturally trust people because my father was so trustworthy. I expect people to do the right thing. And, though I have encountered monsters worse than Jim Thomas, I still enter every relationship believing the best about everyone. In fact, I have had to train myself to cultivate a reasonable skepticism. I expect people to be great and I expect circumstances to work out. I expect difficult things to turn around. I am hopeful and optimistic at all times and in all situations. I look to God, convinced—truly CONVINCED—that He will provide for me. I rarely worry about the future. I do not struggle with faith. And I have never been lonely. Although I have missed individual people to the point of tears, I have not experienced severe, long-term loneliness.

I know I am blessed. But I am also human. My career has been a series of whitewater rafting trips on dangerous, icy rivers. During even the hardest times (perhaps because of my great parents), I never took my eyes off the Lord.

This may be where the children of difficult parents struggle the most. When things look bleak, it is easy to doubt God, or to turn from God and seek answers elsewhere. This is particularly true when things go from bad to worse—and when problems never seem to end.

“Behold as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until He have mercy on us” Psalm 123:2.

If you had great parents, you understand the verse above: I serve the authorities in my life—parents, teachers, employers, or God—and the authorities take care of me.

But if your parents were negligent, abusive, or absent, the verse may not make sense at all. For some kids, the pattern is not serve your parents and they will provide for you. It is something more akin to Every man for himself.

But that is not how God operates. You have a HEAVENLY FATHER and He longs to take care of you. He longs to provide for you. Fix your eyes on Jesus—that means, LOCK your eyes on Jesus—and He will provide for you.

“Our eyes wait on the Lord our God, until He have mercy on us” Psalm 123:2.

God, forgive us when our eyes stray. Help us to fix our eyes on You, to wait on You to meet all our needs. Have mercy on those raised by difficult parents. Remind us that You are good and You are so much greater than the Mr. Thomases of the world.

AΩ.