i noticed this was still in draft state, i ment to publish it like a year ago. i just watched tug of war... i'm in tears. i am a woman without a blueprint, looking to my heavenly father for as many answers as i can get. my last moment with my father wasn't as nice, he told me to honer my mother as we walked to our cars. i wanted to say more to him, i wanted to say that i missed having him as a father, i wanted to be able to tell him i love him. but a barley knew him. my parents divorced before i was born and all my life my mother told me how bad my dad was. this last day with my dad was the second meeting over lunch i had with him. i had just turned 18 and was determined that since i was an adult now i would get to know my father despite my mothers wishes. i used the excuse of needing information from him for college scolorship applications since he was a veteran and i could qualify for more help. but secretly i didn't even care about college. all my life growing up i had dreamed about turning 18 and going and living with my dad and finally having that relationship with him i had longed for my whole life that my mother did everything to keep from happening. my mother was selfish and wanted her children to herself. the horrible things she told me about my father made me so scared of him that by the time i was a pre-teen i had wrote a letter to family court saying i didn't want to have visitations with my father. so ya see, on that last day i saw my dad, i was still pretending to be tough... and as we each walked to our cars i heard this clear little voice that said "this is the last time you will see your father alive, go give him a hug and tell him how you really feel" i didn't do it. i didn't want to believe that voice or admit my true feelings. ... dad, i'm so sorry... i blamed my mom for not letting me get to know him, i blamed God for letting him die just then. i blamed myself for his death, telling myself if i only would have told him, he wouldn't have died from a broken heart. i had nightmares that the cops were coming to arrest me for murder. i had thought much about killing myself. i continued to christian college since the option of staying with my dad was gone, i was on plan B. but my heart was broken and torn. i struggled with depression and confusion with God. some well meaning but ill guided Christians told me that depression was the result of selfishness sins and that i was demon possessed. i became scared of this "evil force" that i could not shake no matter what ritual people told me to try. i eventually concluded that God did not love me since he wasn't setting me free from my demons. i was drawn to evil things like witchcraft to try to explain what i was experiencing. i eventually got back into going to church but it took forever to ever realize that God really does love me and that those people were poor examples of the character and nature of God's perfect love, especially when they no longer wanted anything to do with me. i thank God for not leaving me there, i thank him so much that he came and tracked me down and brought me to the right place where the right people were able to love me out of rejecting love. it took a lot, and i was mean to them because of how much hurt got pulled back up. i accused them of rejecting me at every turn and i would reject them before they could have the chance to reject me. but they pressed on and kept loving me, they showed me the kind of love God gives his children. that love broke the curse of sin and death. that love set me free. in the year before going to Great Lakes Christian College my father had passed away in a sudden unexpected tragic way. i was not dealing with it well and didn't really want to keep my arrangement's to go to the christian college but felt obligated and thought that at least i would be around loving Christians. i fell into a depression and only revived advice like "it's not christian to be so self-c entered" and some offered suggestions of demon possession. i came to hate Christians for their lack of love and became paranoid of evil. I played around with wicca and other evils trying to understand this evil i couldn't seem to fight off. i had panic attacks and other issues. it took a long time, but God finally brought me back to Him and showed me that those people were NOT representatives of his love and character. there were only a few people i didn't feel completely abandoned by at that time and i thank them that they tried to care when everyone else turned their backs on me. i don't remember the names of some of the people who sent little notes, sometimes anonymously, but i owe a thank you to for showing love when i was at a very low spot. my dysfunctional abusive childhood also added to the confusion of how to handle my emotions. i never intended to have such issues and never meant to go to a christian college only to receive counseling as someone had also suggested. there were many times that i considered taking my own life and i had even tried a few things that didn't harm me at all. i am saying all this not to condemn, but to make aware the hurts of people, and also to say i have come to a place of understanding and forgiveness of those who didn't know how to handle me in that state of mind. as i seek now to do ministry with people with depression, past trauma and other hurts i realize just how hard and awkward this sort of thing is.