dear dad, isn’t it ironic?

dear dad,

you are the one

meant to protect,

to love,

to be trusted.

you are the one

meant to support,

to comfort,

to be there.

where are you?

you are not here.

you are

alone.

i wasn’t safe around you,

i needed protection.

i fell apart around you,

i needed support.

isn’t it ironic

that you are the one

i needed protection from

all along?

isn’t it ironic

that you were always there

but i wish

that you hadn’t been?

isn’t it ironic

that i felt love

from anyone

but you?

isn’t it ironic

that i

cannot trust people

because of you?

all i know is,

if there is one thing

that you taught me,

it’s irony.

sincerely, Elena

The Story Behind the Poem

I wrote this poem almost exactly 5 years ago, on February 11, 2018. This would have been about 7 months after I told my family that my dad abused me. It also would have been during that time that I had a poetry class, one that deeply impacted my life.

In that class, week after week I was challenged to grow as a writer, and I did. What I don’t think I realized is how much I was growing as a person. Looking back, I can see that class didn’t just make my writing better, it challenged me to be vulnerable in a group of strangers, speak honestly, and think deeply about what had happened in my life and who my dad really was.

During this time, while battling my unhealthy coping mechanisms and my knee-jerk responses both of avoidance and suppression (and many more for that matter), I was also pushing myself to be honest about how I felt for the first time. This was especially difficult for me when it came to my dad. The relationship I had with him was so complex and my brain had a way of avoiding criticizing him.

There were many things I was not ready to say out loud, but writing has always helped me to express things I would never have had the courage or self-awareness to say. As I wrote about my dad and what a dad is supposed to be, I realized that I did have some negative feelings about my dad and that those feelings were warranted.

God’s design of what a dad is meant to be is so far from who my dad was to me. When I started writing about that, I found that those words were true and that I felt them deeply.

When I wrote “where are you? you are not here” that is when I started feeling a fire inside of me.  I realized he should have been there, but he wasn’t. I felt like I was fatherless even though my father was close by. It made me angry that his decision to abuse me forced me to not have him in my life. Once I felt that, the other words poured out.

I wasn’t safe around him, I fell apart around him, I needed protection from my own father, I wished he had never been around, I never felt loved by him, and he was the reason I couldn’t trust people. All of this poured out and I realized just how ironic it was that everything a dad is meant to be, was just about the opposite of who my dad was.

It just felt right to structure this poem as a letter to my dad, a very sarcastic yet honest letter. I never actually sent this to him, because the point was that I was writing it for my own benefit, not his. I wrote in all lowercase because it felt like I was stating he didn’t deserve to be addressed with proper grammar and structure. And of course, “sincerely, Elena” was a play on the fact that this was all written in a very insincere manner. Yes, what I wrote was honest, but the tone I addressed my dad with was not sincere.

To this day, when I read this poem, I have to cheer myself on. I am proud of that 18-year-old girl that had the courage to write those words and share them with people she hardly knew. She had to think about how things should be between a father and daughter and the fact that her reality was so far from that. Not only did she write honestly about that experience, but she added a little spunk! That’s why I have to cheer her on, cheer myself on.

The person I am now is far different than the person I was at that time. I’m sure it is easier now for the people who know me to read this poem and believe that I wrote it. But for me to write this 5 years ago is a whole different story.

In hindsight, I see my 18-year-old self truly. I see a little girl shaking in her skin, feeling like the ground is falling out beneath her and everyone in her life is on the verge of leaving. I see a girl that is terrified to accept that she had actually been sexually abused and terrified to think a negative thought about the man who abused her. I see a girl that can hardly accept her past and at the same time can’t see a way forward.

I see a girl that would do anything to never be hurt again but she so desperately wants to be loved. I see a girl who wants to open up and truly be seen but she has built so many walls that she doesn’t know how to let fall. I see a girl so inexperienced in speaking hard truth, but she knew the truth about her life was hard.

For that girl to write this poem—is a really beautiful and powerful thing. It took quite a lot of bravery for her to write those words. I know it might seem strange to hear me speaking about myself in this way, but I have to share this because I have done things in my life that I never in a million years would have dreamed I could ever do.

It’s not that I’m prideful, it’s that I am astonished and overwhelmed with thankfulness for what God has done in my life and the strength He has given me every time I needed it. I am continually amazed at where God has taken me in my life.

When I look at my college years and specifically think back to my creative writing classes, I just feel so thankful that God led me to those spaces and He really used them. Even in a room full of people who didn’t follow Jesus, with a teacher who wasn’t a Christian, learning secular ideas and concepts—God was sovereign and all things always work out under His will and at His word. Even in that environment, God pushed me toward healing and His hand of protection was ever-present.

I don’t know what has happened in your life, the choices you’ve made, the things other people did or said to you, but God does. I am confident that God can and will meet you where you are and there is growth and healing for you if you lean into Him. God pours out mercy we don’t deserve, strength we could never obtain on our own, breakthroughs we could never earn, and peace we can’t comprehend.

God is in the business of healing. He makes blind people see, deaf people hear, crippled people walk, dead people alive, and brings beauty out of the ashes. If He can do all this, He can redeem, restore, and reconcile you and all of the pain and struggle you have experienced in your life.

I know it might seem strange that I go from sharing a sassy and sad poem to then talking about God’s restoration. But this is what God’s restoration has looked like in my life. I see God’s restoration in the nights I spent with friends where we all laughed and talked about silly things, then built friendships that showed me my pain mattered and people cared about me. I see it in the breakdowns and panic attacks I had that brought me to my knees in desperation. I see it in tearful worship sessions where I tasted the goodness of God. I see it in angsty poems and blunt stories written about trauma and abuse. I see it in heartfelt prayers of pain and thankfulness wrapped up together. I see it in a college class where I shared my brokenness with other broken people. I know I’ve said it already, but this is what God’s restoration has looked like in my life.

Restoration isn’t just glamourous, beautiful, and shiny. In order for there to be a need to restore something, that means it has been broken and damaged previously. Repairing and renewing someone who is broken is a difficult process. Old wounds and former reactions show up and fight against healthy love and receiving grace. It is difficult as a broken person who has never really experienced healthy love to receive it with reckless abandon. Our defense mechanisms kick in and we are afraid of being hurt, afraid of finding out the love we were offered has a cost.

This is why, for me, restoration has been a slow process and also quite messy. Because I go back and forth between the comfort and familiarity of my broken self and the joy, yet unfamiliarity of my restored self. There is also the fact that in order to see healing and restoration, we first must unveil our brokenness and pain. Once you deal with the top layer of brokenness and pain, you must then go on to the next layer, and it often seems that these layers will never end.

It is easy to see the fact that we have more and more brokenness, and we get caught up in all the pain. But we have to also turn our eyes toward the continued restoration and healing being revealed in us as well. I have realized I am more broken and have experienced more pain than I ever could have imagined. And yet, I have realized I am more healed and have experienced more restoration than I ever could have imagined. These are the realities we must hold in tandem.

What I am saying is this, brokenness and restoration both follow us. We are humans made of flesh and blood, which means we carry brokenness with us. But as Christians, we are also humans filled the Spirit, which means we carry restoration. God is with you in the joy, the worship, the realizations of His goodness, yes. But He meets us where we are no matter what and He loves us unconditionally. When you go throughout your week and you see a lot of anxiety and pain and tears, just know that God is with you in that too.

I hope you are able to relate to the messiness of my restoration process. I hope you are encouraged that God is with you through everything and that He is orchestrating everything in your life on purpose. I hope this encourages you to reflect on your own life and look how far God has brought you. I bet you will be amazed at who you are now when you think back to who you were even just a few years ago. Thanks for showing up,

-Elena ❤