This story is about my Dad. My crazy-sanguine-embarrass-me-much-Father … who walked with great depth of emotion and like a pendulum it swung him to heights of great passion and then plummeted him to the opposite end of his regrets in this life. This is part of his story, a bit of my story, and some of our story. The story of his journey to the end of this life, and to the beginning of his next. It is a memoir of an ending, but I believe it is the beginning of a better story that one day I’ll hear in heaven where, hopefully, a better me will see him again.
So being in my thirty some-things … I’m finally in a place where I can write this story. There is something about being in your thirties and finally having a clearer view of the past, being in a place where you can finally come to terms with your faults and those of the ones you love. The insecurities of a younger self begin to ebb away as the pride and invincibility of our youth is traded for wisdom gained from lessons learned the hard way; ones that have led us to greater compassion solely because we realize our desperate need for it.
My mom and dad were divorced five months after I was born. To my father’s credit I didn’t know a childhood without him, he was always faithful to come see me or fly me out to see him. He bought my back-to-school clothes every year and my Mom bought my summer clothes. He doted on buying my Easter dresses and trying to culture me with name brands. My Mom and Dad were opposites in every way. My Mom shopped at Mervyn’s, my Dad shopped at Macy’s. My Mom was non-addictive, my Dad was highly addictive and somehow that seems an understatement. My Mom was socially friendly, my Dad was extravagantly charming (Look hard enough and you can find me perfectly in the middle.) That’s the way it’s supposed to work … right? Opposites attracting? I didn’t get to hear the stories about how much he loved my Mom and why he was drawn to her until shortly before he passed, I think somewhere deep inside I needed to know they loved each other when they had me; and if he hadn’t struggled with rage and acting on that rage that we could have had a chance at being a normal family.
I lived with him off and on during some adolescent hard patches. I’ve never met anyone quite like him. He was so charming … people were drawn to him and he always dazzled a stranger … calling waitresses “Sweetheart” like they had been friends forever. He wore strong expensive cologne and insisted I wear a nice perfume from a young age. He was so yuppy in every way. I remember all the girl’s volleyball games he took me to at the local university and the plays put on by the local community theater. He also sent me to etiquette school, at the time it seemed silly but now I look back and see what a gift it was. He was always concerned that my Mom wouldn’t raise me to be cultured enough. He gave me the opportunity to embrace the creative element in me and I did. My love of the arts started young and it was in these moments it began.
I think back on these memories and all the painful things I’ve had to go through in my life. I’m not afraid anymore of being broken, like I was in my twenties, trying desperately to hold my life together like I had the power. I see the beauty of the mosaic I’ve become … if I had not been broken on the rock that is Christ … I would not have been able to take only the good pieces leaving behind the bad, becoming and being the art only God can create. These memories are among my favorite pieces.
My dad really struggled with anger and managing it and a lot of his relationships were ended because of it. My heart is to honor my Dad with this story, so I’m not going to go into all those details except to say when I was twelve he sought prolonged counseling and thereafter was without incident until he passed away. Which in my eyes makes him an overcomer… anyone who finds fault in themselves and fights for change and sees that change become a reality deserves a standing ovation.
He overcame some great struggles and carried others till the day he died. He started smoking when he was in sixth grade. I don’t remember ever seeing a picture where he wasn’t smoking or trying to hide a cigarette behind his back. His mom died of emphysema and ultimately that is the disease that took my Dad’s life as well.
I found out when he was in his late forties he was beginning to have some chronic lung problems and around the time he turned fifty he received the emphysema diagnosis. Shortly after he got his breathing machine I received my hand inscribed copy of Tuesdays with Morrie: a book by Mitch Albom. He said it would help me deal with the levels of accepting his looming death and how quickly he would physically weaken. I resisted reading the book for months thinking, “My God is bigger, He can help me … I don’t need to read that book.” But then God said, “Honor your father and read the book. You’ll find wisdom in the book and then I’ll strengthen you with truth.” I read the book non-stop for two days, taking moments off to weep and prepare my heart for the journey ahead. I talked to my Dad about how God heals. But heaven became the healing he wanted and during this time he truly gave his heart to the Lord. He had been so wounded in this life, now that he believed in heaven, it just sounded like a better place. As he opened up his heart to the Lord, the Lord began to restore the relationships between my dad and his children.
I know when the Lord spoke to me in the middle of freaking out in a Texas tornado, sirens going off, this Cali girl flipping out, crying out to God, “I’m all alone! I’m scared! Well Jesus, I guess you’re here …” Then His presence came in like a flood and I was humbled by my unbelief. All I wanted to do is repent but He asked me to shush because He wanted to do the talking. He told me to go back to California to see my father alone without my husband. He showed me I had some giants to kill on the way to my promised land of emotional health and wholeness. I had to go this one alone with the Lord and the victory was already mine. I thought of the emotional work this would require and wondered if I could handle going where the Lord was asking me to go. Could I say what I needed to say? Could I show greater love then the pain I knew as a child? Could I extend grace and accept love the way my father was capable of showing it and not be disappointed that it never looked or felt the way I wanted it? Could this look like healing? I was so lost in His presence and the commissioning of this divine assignment that when I opened my eyes I had totally forgotten about the tornado and the storm had passed.
The hardest thing for me to come to terms with during this time was that I so desperately wanted him to see the real me before he passed. The greatest pain I felt from our relationship was the pain of being misunderstood or not known. Always trying to change this perception of me that he had made up in his mind … that I was reserved, that I was emotionless, and sometimes cold. As my husband knows all too well … I’ve always been very in touch with my feelings and love adjectives, so explaining how I feel has never been hard for me. By golly, I can tell you what color my feelings are and every shade in between, for that matter. I wanted him to see that. I can’t say for sure that he did but I can say we had long healing talks and revisited memories where we both offered each other grace and respected each other’s truth (although differing slightly) of the same painful situations. We shared our current struggles, how we wanted to see God in them. He wanted his children to remember him, I just wanted to have children. My husband and I were in the midst of a year and a half battle with infertility (the pain of not knowing what was wrong with me and longing so dearly for one to call my own.) My dad took this on as his prayer assignment. His prayers were so precious with the fervor of a young Christian. I would actually hear him praying for us from his shower when I was visiting. My husband said I came home a new woman from that trip, he could tell God had healed and shifted things on the inside of me. I didn’t carry the daddy pain into my relationship with my husband anymore, the wounded little girl in me had let go of the pains of the past and was able to grow up.
I wasn’t there when my dad passed. My older brother was there and told me he had taken a nap and as he was breathing after he exhaled, the breaths became farther apart until finally he exhaled and never inhaled again. I had a dream about him two weeks after he went to be with the Lord, only I was the one in the room with him when he passed and everything was happening the way my brother explained. Except after he took his last breath, I saw his spirit leave his body and ascend to heaven to stand before two Angels at the entrance of heaven. They asked him what prayer he’d like answered on his way into heaven. As he asked the angels of the Lord for his daughter to get pregnant I began sobbing in my dream and woke up to a wet pillow and was sobbing hard in my bed. It was the first time I had ever been crying in my dream and really crying at the same time. We found out two weeks later we were pregnant with our first son. I knew God was letting me know my fathers heart for me and that when he had entered heaven, the environment of perfect love, he was healed from the pains of this life and through the eyes of perfect love he finally saw me and how much I loved him.
You see, this is a testimony that God is in the business of redeeming everything you will give to Him. We all have had relationships in our lives that aren’t perfect because there are no perfect people. We have been hurt by people we love and we have hurt people we love. But God is able to heal our hearts as we extend grace and walk in forgiveness. I hope you find hope in this story that He redeems. I pray hope gives you the strength to trust your own struggles into the hands of His perfect love. I will testify … He can be trusted!
With Great Love!
Great memories of dad. I know in his last days when you were there and we all got together and filmed us going through his memoirs will always be special. I will always remember the last thing he said before he passed was that he was finally totally at peace with Jesus and ready to go. As his breathing stopped those words were what made it such a special moment and I believe God let you live that moment too. That was neat to her your experience. God is so good! Look at us, Foss’ kids, and where God has brought us from such different paths to similar places in Christ. I just pray always for Christian also. You’re doing great sis and I am proud of you!
Ris, I had never heard the full story before about the restoration between you and your dad. Beautifully written…I don’t know what else to say other than thanks for writing this post. Love you, friend!
This really touched my heart. We have a lot in common. You inspire me~thanks for sharing it!
As i sit hear sobbing like a baby my soul longs for me to trust God in the situations I’m currently in. To give my hurts and fears to HIM to redeem.
“You see, this is a testimony that God is in the business of redeeming everything you will give to Him.”
“anyone who finds fault in themselves and fights for change and sees that change become a reality deserves a standing ovation.”
I want this Marissa so bad. I love you. Thank you.
I could have read this story for hours, maybe one day it will fill the pages of a book. No matter how many times I hear it or even remember it I still cry every time. I only got to talk to your Dad on the phone a few times, never met him face to face, but he DID like to talk. I was just the roommate answering the phone, but he would begin to share with me his thoughts of you as if we had been friends forever. This piece makes me regret that I wasn’t able to know him. I would have loved him. You are so much like your Dad! Yes, I remember just months ago when you called out to the waitress, “Sweetheart”, like something from a cool Humphrey Bogart movie. There you sat in your designer shoes and oozing of fashion surprising me with new depths in our conversation as if a reflection of your father at his best. And I remember the morning you came over in your PJs looking a mess. You were unable to speak, but you held a stick in your hand with the evidence of your Dad’s answered prayers. It’s one of those memories I will NEVER forget untainted by the knowledge you had peed on that stick only minutes prior…LOL! Looks like it’s going to be an emotional morning…Love you much!!
It’s amazing to me how each person is made up parts you never know about unless they reveal it. Thank you for sharing what makes you, you! Because this story had a life timeline, there was so much to glean from it.
-Could I have greater love than the pain? Could I accept love? Could this be healing?- These are 3 questions I just spent yesterday pondering, before you gave me the words to do so. I got these questions answered with a NO by someone I used to be very close to. And I understood why. But I still wanted to be very different in my own heart. I purposed to be different, to honor Jesus’ love for me. Here you are, reminding me I’m headed in the right direction.
I have a father who doesn’t know me. So much so, I don’t even call him “father”. He curses my chance at having children. (I still don’t have any, after 6 years.) Your story challenged me to remember ANYTHING is possible with God. Healing is possible.
Blessings on you and your sweet sweet spirit. Your words make you so endearing.
Thank you for sharing this part of your journey with us. It is such a beautiful testimony of His work ! Love how he answered your dad’s prayer for you.
4 precious sons. I am proud of you for listening to the Lord and going to Cali … doing it afraid…. and what a huge blessing followed.
Bless you!
Marissa,
This testimony of your father hit so close to home with me! It brought me to tears! As you know I recently lost my grandmother and until then I had never lost a loved one so close to me before. In this vulnerable time I had to really dig deep for some healing to come that only comes from Jesus. I believe God prepared my heart for her death and I was able to grieve just before she passed away. I felt His love stronger than ever before, like He was holding me like a baby in His arms.
Thank you for expressing your heart so others may see His love in you even through the most difficult times. Your story allowed me to revisit the time in my life where I needed Him the most. He was and is so faithful to heal the broken hearted!
I rest in His peace knowing that she is dancing in heaven with Jesus right now!
Love you girl!
~Maree
Where do I start? This is an absolutely amazing story. I’m sobbing! My heart is so full of emotion. What an awesome testimony you have. I’ve heard bits of pieces of your story, but to read it all together like this, so beautifully written, is overwhelming. What a great God we serve!
I know this will be bring hope and healing to so many … I know it did for me.
Love you, my friend.
Marissa,
I love you!! I don’t know where to begin!! I believe God is healing my heart from the hurt from my own father as I am typing this!! And it hurts, because it’s so deep!! It’s amazing, they are just words on a computer but, my heart sees different!!
Thank you for sharing this today!! God’s timing is always perfect!!
In Him,
Jacqueline
Ris,
You have a gift – so many people have gone through things- we all have…but the ability to communicate them the way God would want you to is something else. I feel God as you write. I get you. My heart feels you. Thank you for taking the time.
Ang
P.S. You were right- tears sprouted from my heart when your Dad was praying for you and I do believe he finally got you too.
Sweet Ris,
What a precious picture of the little girl inside reaching up to be held in the loving arms of her Father. You placed all your trust in the One who could bring healing and restoration and in turn were the catalyst that brought healing into your father’s heart as well. 20 years ago I lived out a very similar story, I look forward to the day I am once again able to feel my father’s arms holding me close and the delight in knowing we will spend eternity without the heartache and pain of life.
I love you,
Tomi
Loved reading this…loved reading how your dad was the influence behind theater, etc. He sounds like he treasured you from early on, even if he did not always know how to show it. I love this testimony to what the Lord can do. Sigh…in many ways a parallel to my own father’s story. I needed this encouragement today, to continue to believe that He Who is Able can transform what seems impossible.
I don’t even know what to say 2 express the thoughts that I have toward your blog. God has really been speaking 2 me about honor and you really did honor your dad even though you have been hurt by him. I am amazed @ your honesty and honor. I hope to gain that in my life.
Your wisdom is so beyond your years…you write with such conviction, compassion, and authenticity, that it moves people to go deeper..amazing!!
Ris-
Wow….where to start. Thank you for transparently sharing your story. I believe that by transparently sharing our life experiences, it brings hope and encouragement to others. God is so faithful and so good! Sometimes I think we want something so badly, and try to make it happen ourselves…only to be disappointed and add to the hurt. If only we could just TRUST Him…that HE would bring about what needs to happen in the right time. He has shown this to me time and time again. I believe He wanted to encourage me through your story. I have always longed for a close relationship with my own father. Sure, we talk occasionally, but I have realized that he doesn’t really even know who I am. This saddened my heart, but just came to the conclusion that it would just always be that way. Your story does give me hope. My story -our story- isn’t over yet. Thanks for the reminder! :0)
Wow! Should not have read that while sitting in Great Clips waiting for the boys to get haircuts! I don’t think people cry here often!
. Oh well, I’m so glad I did read it! So many things I could say in response. So many things I can relate to (having a Dad that struggled with anger, losing my Dad, etc.) in your testimony! Such a beautiful message! I can’t seem to put ally rambling thoughts into words right now so I’ll just say. . . I’m so blessed that God has caused our paths to intersect. You truly do rock your tiara! 
. Hugs!
Ris, I am enjoying getting to know you through your writing. Loved this story! It touched me deeply.
I loved the part where you said, “…God is in the business of redeeming everything you will give to Him.” Such hope in that–we all have things in our life that are not yet redeemed, and God is good and faithful to take us through that lifelong process of redemption.
Thanks for opening your life to us.
I can’t stop crying as I read this… Beautiful Writing!
Your story unexpectedly touched me and opened up so many of my own buried feelings that I guess needed to be exposed. For some reason, I’ve only read your Destiny In Bloom blog one other time, and that was before summer started. I believe it was God’s destiny that I read this today of all days.
You see, I lost my Dad in 2003 from complications from diabetes and his would-have-been 62nd birthday is coming up. He too covercame some struggles and yet still carried others until the day he died. Now I am waiting for a diagnosis regarding a medical condition about my Mom, who started smoking when she was 13, and was just in the ER this Tuesday, possibly having to do with complications from emphysema that she too has been diagnosed with but is in denial of. She claims it’s JUST COPD, however I was at the hospital during that particular visit when the doctor told her otherwise, yet refuses to be treat for it in the form of breathing machines or oxygen tanks, and instead uses inhalers regularly and still coughs profusely on a regular basis.
These past few years I have been in the process of learning to deal with my “colorful” emotions too. I still have a LOT of healing that needs to take place as well before her time comes as I grew up in a highly dysfunctional home with an angry, raging dictator of a Father and a passive, subserviant Mother who didn’t protect us from his rages…yet these opposites were loyal, faithful, and unconditionally loved each other and managed to stay married for over 35 years until his death. I too realize as I grow older, that both of my parents were a product of their own tragic childhoods. Though neither of them were alcoholics and in fact didn’t even drink, they both still had the unfortunate symptoms & tendencies of alcoholics.
I could go on & on with the common variables you & I share, but my lunch break is over here at work. What I really feel the need to say is that I want to thank you for sharing your story and thank God for bringing you to the place & time you are at where you were able to. It brings me hope and encouragement, as well as opens me up to some very real emotions that had been buried but that must need to come out at this particular season in my life in order to come to terms with some hurt & pain I have with my still living Mom, prayerfully with some of the same healing talks through much needed but probably very different revisited memories….as I too often feel frutrated that I have been VERY much misunderstood and not even really known by my own Mom…in fact rejection is a huge thing I often feel from her. Maybe it’s time that I read Tuesdays With Morrie.
Talk About Timing… this MUST have been God-ordained.
Amazed by Grace,
Kimberly
Marissa, bless you for sharing such an intimate glimpse into your life. I agree that one day this will be in book form. The more I get to know you, the more I want to know you. You are really a speciial ambassador for Christ. I loved the line about becoming the beautiful mosiac because you were broken on Christ the Rock…..how you have been enabled to take the good pieces leaving the bad behind….”and being the art only God can create” !!! Wow!!!
thank you for your transparency sweet friend…..the vivid, passionate and grace-filled way you talk about your relationship with our Savior is refreshing and encouraging. the tapestry of your life is beautiful and i love having a front row seat as he weaves it. i love you, ris!
I LOVE THIS!!!!!
“Which in my eyes makes him an overcomer… anyone who finds fault in themselves and fights for change and sees that change become a reality deserves a standing ovation.”
You deserve a standing ovation Marissa!
What a wonderful testimony to God’s restoring love – redeeming love! I share a similar past and loved Tuesday’s with Morrie. I’d love to chat over coffee sometime. We overcome by the blood of the lamb and The Word of our Testimony! Thanks for sharing your life and heart with so many of us! You truly Shine!
Oh Ris, your gift to paint your heart’s journey as a picture that opens the journey of others and invites His beauty to come in is a miracle! I realize as I read even paragraph one that a journey of ministry was unfolding and I had to stop to let the Holy Spirit fully unfold the dream that he designed this blog for through His Marissa! I didn’t know the plans of the Father in crossing our paths! “Maybe it’s for a fun moment to encourage a neat girl who follows Him with her all!” I thought the day we met, but I’m thankful He’s given me a glimpse of His calling in you! You are a destiny encourager, but you are a destiny maker as well!! I don’t have the “strengths finder” name for that one, but it’s so evidently His handy work! I love to read and dive into what I love about the picture someone has painted with their writing, but I couldn’t!! I was lost in the beauty of the story, the journey and how it was unraveling! I wanted to pick a quote, but I had to press on!!:)
I lived at both Mervyn’s and Macy’s and was expected to be the perfectly poised ballerina and the survivor in the storm of strife that was my home! You have walked a journey of pain that no one would fault you in sharing, yet by His direction, you share in grace and only in His direction! Your writing is a gift from which He has allowed you to minister in some safety and he knew that was perfect for His Ris!! As I press on in your heart journey, my own heart is open to His complete journey for mine and the great desire to offer it as worship to my Beloved!!
Girls with the beginning of this story may be be a dime a dozen, but overcomers with such wholeness and healing are a one in a million! This is so full and so needed to impart into so many hurting little girls stuck inside the broken heart of a woman! Ris, He has called you to something so amazing through the miracle of this story! I am truly moved and ministered to as I realize my friend has had so many footprints, I too have walked!! He has made you and called it GOOD!;)
Marissa
That was so beautiful and so touched my heart ! It gives great Encouragement to me you see I have daddy issues and it wasn’t till we lost my mom 5 years ago that we began to even have a relationship it is not near what I long to have but God has revealed his heart to mine and has shown me how I can trust my daddy in heaven and I can sit in his lap and he loves on me I call it sweet kisses from heaven . I am still praying that one day my dad and I can have a loving relationship . Thank You for sharing your heart !
Love
Kim Fox
That was beautiful! Thank you for opening up and sharing that with the rest of the world. You have given encouragement to so many for sharing your story. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
What you said in your 2nd paragraph about being in your 30s is so true. Very well put. You are right. You are a perfect combination of being socially friendly and extravagantly charming. Ris, this is so well written. You drew me completely and had me riveted from the get go. It is incredibly moving and deep. Your story about how he died (when your brother was there) is just like how my grandfather died from emphysema. When my aunt died, 3 months before my grandfather, we also saw her spirit leaving her body. It was incredible. Anyway, it’s incredible how God answered your prayers for a precious baby in the midst of your father’s passing. That gave me goose bumps. God is defnitely in the business of redeeming. SO true! Have you ever read Francine River’s book “Redeeming Love”? It’s a beautiful story of God’s redeeming love. Anyway, thank you for this incredible blog my friend! Love you much!
Marissa,
It always amazes me how God can take something and make such beauty out of it when we put it into His hands. No one has walked in your shoes but the truths here can be applied to our circumstances.
I so love your heart and how you express it. You are truly a unique creation in Christ and even though our paths have not crossed in awhile I have enjoyed the times that they did. Thank you for being you and sharing your story.
Blessings!
Marissa,
Thank you for the story of your life and your daddy.
I’m adopted by another family when my mom and dad decided to have their own life without me.
You gave me boldness to keep on sharing my story and brings healing to the broken hearted, Thank you again and Im glad to know you.
Karen
Marissa, I actually clicked on the little internet icon and got to the website just to read your blog — and you know what that’s saying for me to do that!
It was completely worth it! I love this story. I love the reddemption of the relationship. I love the relationship your dad developed with Jesus. I love your honesty and vulnerability — and your love of adjectives! You are a precious friend!
Much Love,
Jo
Ris, I have never heard this story about your dad- thank you for sharing your heart while giving hope to others! Very well written!
I remember now the miracle of your dad’s prayer. Wow. What a great way to show your story of forgiveness and redemption to the world who will read it and see in between the tears-yours and ours. It’s no wonder God called you to begin this venture of DIB-what an honor to walk alongside your beautiful and transparent life. much love~m
I’m so humbled and blessed by all your comments. Thank you for sharing your hearts … I cherish all your stories.
Kimberly choose to hold His hand through the ups and downs, twists and turns He will prove Himself faithful! It’s WHO HE IS! Thank you for trusting us and sharing your heart.
I am beyond blessed that the Lord allowed my brother who was with my father when he passed away to see this get posted to Facebook (when I hadn’t told him about it) and be my first comment. It was like a kiss from God confirming the timing of this piece. I love the Grand Adventure of serving such an amazing GOD!
Thanks for being on this adventure with me!
Great Love,
~Ris
That was riveting and such a beautiful way of telling the restoration God can give. ! Loved it-thanks for sharing!
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