My Fathers Son

"Every generation, blames tthe one before, and all of their frustrations, come beating on your door.  I know that I'm a prisoner to all my father held so dear, I know that I'm a hostage to all his hopes and fears.  I just wish I could have told him, in the living years."
"The Living Years" Mike and the Mechanics

A big part of growing in our lives is to come to that point where our lives seperate from those of our parents.  Face it, we  may live 20-25 years in the company of, or under the influence of our mothers and/or fathers.  Eventually, that bond is seperated and we strike out on our own to see what this world has in store for us.  Although this is a natural process in any family, when it happens it can have good or bad consequences.  Most of us have dreams of what we want to do with our lives, and this is often influenced by our parents.  There's a reason our younger days are called our "formative" years, it's  during these years that we are often molded into the person we will someday become.  I was fortunate enough in my younger years to have been raised in a christian home.  My mother was a very God fearing woman, and she strived to pass this on the her two boys.  My faith and my belief if God I attribute to those years my mom read me bible stories and prayed with me.  That was  my mothers influence.
My dads influence during these years was a different story.  My parents had divorced when I was young due to my fathers alchoholism and infidelity.  My brother and I definately had two role models vying for our attention at times.  Where my mother was a God fearing christian woman, my dad could not have been farther from the Lord.  To my dad, it was normal for there to be open cans of beer around my grandmas house when we would visit.  Well, naturaly the grandkids would eventualy come across a few.  To my grandfather, this was just normal, but nothing made my mother more upset than the thought of her kids consuming alchohol at such a young age.  From what I've been told, this led to many strong arguments between mom and dad.
Even though I grew up without having my dad as a big part of my life, his influence on my early years was still with me.  Yes, I felt alot of pain because my dad was not in my life, but over the years I've come to see the background which he came out of.  For their part, both of my parents had come out of some sort of abusive family relationships of their own, which may explain why they married so young.  My dad had left home, joined the Navy and, upon completing his hitch, had hired on as a deputy sheriff in Minnesota.
I don't believe in generational curses.  I  believe we all follow the path that we choose for ourselves.  Yes, God can have a big hand in the direction our lives take, but ultimately we choose the lives we live.  We can choose to accept God and the freedom and salvation he offers us, or we can choose to go our own way.  Good or bad, both of my parents had a powerful influence on the man I've become.  If there is one thing that I long to say to my dad it's that I love and forgive him.

~Scott~