Abby to God:

Dear God, I've been very angry with my father lately. Actually, I've been very angry with my father for years, ever since he left my mother and my brother and me, but I have had trouble expressing this anger to him. I really don't believe he loves me anymore. We used to be close, but now when I talk to my father it seems as though he doesn't even hear me.

For example, recently I was sick and had to go to the emergency room. The next day, back in the dorm, my father called just to say hi. (Which he hadn't done in a long time.) When I told him what had happened, all he said was, "Well, I have to go catch my plane now. Hope you have a lovely evening!"

He's been saying how he really wants to come visit me here in New York, but just doesn't have any free time. Last I heard from him was an e-mail saying he wouldn't be able to check his e-mail for awhile as he was going with his wife and her daughters to visit a friend in Florida. I'm furious!

Maybe I shouldn't be, but I am. Things like this have been building up inside me for the past few years and I don't know what to do. I love my dad and I miss him, but I don't think he really cares.

I wish You could tell me a way to get back the closeness I once had with my dad, but I know all I can ask is that You help me to accept this somehow and remember that I can't expect any help from him anymore.

God to Abby:

My dear child, you think your worth is dependent upon your earthly father's love for you when it is My love alone.

The world thinks, like you, that it is tragedy. You had an adoring father, and then he left his family and chose another. And now his attention goes to them more than to you. He left your mother and your brother, and he left you, and your heart feels abandoned.

Abby, don't make it hard for your father to please you. I don't mean that you are to be grateful for crumbs. I do mean that what you feel, your father feels, and he doesn't know how to deal with it. It is too much for him to deal with. He doesn't want to cry. He doesn't want to talk about matters that are weighty on him. He doesn't know how to manage his new wife and her family and his original family. So he runs on the surface and flees.

And all of this has nothing to do with his love for you, Abby. It has to do with himself. He has love for you, dear one, and he doesn't know what to do with it so he dabbles, as it were.

If you had stayed together as a family, it wouldn't be the same as it was, even so. You would be off to college. You would be away from him. You would have left the old ways. You would have left him in a way.

Life moseys along.

The world has certain connotations for certain words. Certain words are most powerful. Father is one of them. So much expectation is wrapped up in that word. Most fathers can only fail to live up to it.

Sooner or later, what your life comes down to is you and Me, Abby.

Your earth father is incidental.

He is not so important as you think.

You don't need to be begging for his love nor do you need to be turning it away.

But what to do with your feelings? We don't want you carrying that burden of hurt and resentment much longer.

The world might tell you to confront your father. "Daddy, you deadbeat. You have no time for me. You don't seem to care what I'm going through. I was in the hospital, for God's sakes, and you acted as if you were deaf and hadn't heard. You're not here for me, and you seem to be there for the daughters who are not yours. You give them time and attention that you don't give me. How do you think that makes me feel?"

Abby, dear one, what your father does or does not do has nothing to do with you. Do you understand that? It has to do with him.

Perhaps it would help for you to write a letter to your father and say everything you have to say. Be merciless. You will get some of it out of you. Then tear it up.

Afterwards, you may feel to write him a kinder letter which also speaks your truth. Say with the love that is in your heart. No reproach. Say the same things but in a way of love, Abby. Invite him to visit, if you like. You are not to pander so find your truth and stay in it. Ask him about his new life and your stepsisters. If you can honestly do that from a place in your heart, do that. But only if you can honestly.

Yet, Abby, My child, what will a visit from your father change? How much difference does the outside make?

Abby, ask Me for help. Say:

"Dear Heavenly Father, I feel so much hurt. I feel deserted by my father. I love him so much and I'm so angry with him. Will you please take these emotions from me? I don't want to be hurt and angry all my life. Please help me to accept this situation as it is. Please help me not to hold anything against my father. Please help me to love him anyway and not mind so much. He is also Your child, and he is trying to find his way to You.

"My dad is not what he would want to be in life. Will you help him come to peace with himself as you are helping me? Will You help him forgive himself?

"He is only a wanderer in life. Help me to not hold that against him.

"Help me to forgive him for not being everything I want him to be and that he would also want to be.

"Help me out of this trap of judgment I have put myself in.

"Help me to see my dad as he is and not as an offender to me.

"Help me to give to my dad what I want him to give to me. Help me to give or not give, as I want, and let go.

"Help me to grow in Your light, dear Heavenly Father.

"Help me to know I am Your child.

"Help me go beyond the thoughts of the world.

"Help me to hasten to You.

"Help me to help You.

"Thank You for all Your help to me and my family. My family is also Yours. I do not have to worry about them because they are in Your care and love.

"First and foremost, I am Your child, dear God.

"I am not a holder on of past ignorance.

"I walk into the light, my hand held in Yours.

"What can I be concerned about when I have You and You hold me?

"I am Your child. What more do I have to be?

"Thank You."

Abby, write back when you are ready and tell Me how you are.