Being the Beloved:
stories of ongoing transformation in daily life
By Rev. Stan Jacobson
In my growing up years I was afraid of my dad. He had an explosive anger, and I was, at times the recipient of that anger, especially in my teenage years. My dad never hit me, never spanked me, but, as I said, I was, at times, the recipient of his anger, and for that reason I was afraid of him.
My dad never, ever darkened the doors of a church, except for funerals or weddings, but my mom was a quiet and a very strong Christian and I followed her to church. I have always felt that I was loved by Jesus.
Sometime around my twenty-first birthday I began to internally struggle in my mind and heart concerning my relationship with my dad. That struggle involved a new realization that I had not ever really loved my dad as I had wanted to love him. As that struggle continued, I began to realize that I wanted to go to him and ask him to forgive me for not loving him as I had wanted to love him. It was a very, very scary thing for me to do, but I was convinced that this was something that God desperately wanted me to do. So, after much struggle I did ask him to forgive me.
Now that I am in my late seventies, I can’t remember the exact words that I said, but I remember the words my dad said to me: “You know that I have always loved you.” That was the very first time I had ever heard him say those words to me. My dad only lived a few more years from that time I asked him to forgive me, but from that moment on my relationship with my dad began to change for the better. For that, I am eternally thankful.
Now I realize that what I did, asking my dad to forgive me for not loving him as I wanted to, was not a normal action taken by a person who is abused, and it was much later in my life that I realized that I had grown up in an abusive home. Yes, it was after much struggle that I asked him to forgive me, but it seemed to me at the time it was something God wanted me to do. Again, I say that it is not a normal action taken by a person who is abused, nor is it something I’m recommending one should do. I am not saying that an abused person should ask the abuser for forgiveness. I’m simply sharing my story - how God used my asking for forgiveness to change the relationship between my father and me.
As a retired pastor, in one of the congregations that I served, we had an AA group that met every Sunday morning. I would at times go to that group and I began to realize the importance of reviewing your life history and asking people to forgive you for things you had done. Are their people to whom you need to go back to, to ask for forgiveness? This is a tender question, and our loving God is there to support you as you ask it.
A little about Stan: I am a retired pastor who completed CFDM's spiritual direction course in 2017. I was married for forty years when my wife Diane died of cancer in 2014. In 2017 I married Nancy and we live in Sequim, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula. I have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and Nancy also has two sons, Peter and Andrew. That's right, you read it right! My Andrew and Peter are both married and each has one child.
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