My Two Dads, part three: a faith based story from the Story Powerline

My Two Dads, part three: a faith based story from the Story Powerline
Thursday, February 27, 2020 by Janimarie Rowe as told to Becky Cerling Powers

(Yesterday’s story: From the time I was young, I dreamed about my biological dad Sam and felt a lot of anger toward my adoptive dad Ron, who married my mom when I was 22 months old. After I married and our baby Josh was born, my dad Ron had a dream that my dad Sam had died. It shocked me into trying to find him. I located him in a California prison, and we wrote for three months until he got out of prison and came to visit.)

The visit

When he got off the plane, we were both crying. He came on a Wednesday and left the next Monday morning. We talked constantly. He had become a Christian in prison, and he kept saying, “Now God can take me because my life is complete. I’ve seen you and I’ve seen my grandson.’’

Plans to meet again

We decided that my husband and I would drive to California to meet the five children from his third marriage on Memorial Day weekend. When I took him to the airport Monday morning, I didn’t know why I felt so depressed. I thought I’d see him in six weeks.

That next Saturday morning, his mother phoned. My dad Sam had died the night before of an embolism. My mom was out of town, so I called my sister Shauna, and she called my dad Ron.

He phoned me sobbing. He kept saying, “I’m so sorry.’’ That was when the truth finally dawned: “He really does love me.’’

Healing in grief

For a year I’d been praying that God would take away the anger that I had toward my dad Ron. Somehow, at that moment, it happened. The hurts and pains I had had inside, and my interpretations of the way things had happened with my dad Ron, all just disappeared.

When my dad Sam died, all that died with him. I realized God had given my dad Ron and me to each other, and it’s been different between us ever since.

Arranging the funeral, meeting half siblings

I had to take care of most of the funeral arrangements in California because my dad Sam was no longer married to his third wife, and I was the oldest child.

It was hard meeting my five little brothers and sisters, ages three to twelve. They were raised differently from me. They grew up in a home where their mom did drugs and had other men living with her after my dad Sam went to prison.

Reliving a dream

At the grave site ceremony, with Josh in my arms and the little kids jumping around, I began to feel a sense of deja vu. Suddenly I realized I was reliving a dream I’d had when I was little. In the dream there were rolling green hills in the background just like these. I was holding a baby, and dark headed kids were jumping around me.

I felt great love from God that day. He spared my dad Sam’s life for a few months so that I was able to see him, and He healed my relationship with my dad Ron. I sensed how much my Heavenly Father cared about me and all of us. I saw that God wants families to be restored.

What the Bible says

“While they are still talking to me about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers’’ (Isaiah 65:24 NLT).

Today’s prayer

Dear God, thank You for Your constant care and faithfulness. Amen.

Resource

This story is published by permission from My Roots Go Back to Loving and other stories from Year of the Family, which can be purchased from the Bookstore

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