Mending Frayed Relationships

Reconciliation can begin when forgiveness meets remorse.

On August 27, 2020, Hurricane Laura made landfall in Southwest Louisiana with winds of 150 mph. Those winds still exceeded 100 mph as Laura passed through our home in Central Louisiana and traveled north.

At dusk the following day, my wife Joy, our daughter Meredith, our dog Gracie, and I were strolling through our battered neighborhood. Shattered trees, broken branches, and all manner of debris lined either side of the street. People had been hard at work beginning to restore their homes and their yards to some semblance of pre-storm normal.

Looking around, I had what may seem an odd moment of clarity: “I always knew that my mother loved me, no matter what. But I had to keep trying to prove myself to my father, and I never succeeded.”

If you’re one of my regular readers, you might be thinking, “Well, no kidding!” My articles frequently recount stories about my mom. And I’ve described my father’s emotional and physical abusiveness in A Resurrection Shaped Life.

Maybe it was seeing heap af…