You Made Me Choose, but Why?

Did you really think I would give you more importance than my own daughter?

Did you really think you could use our father’s memory as a weapon to bend me to your will?

Did you really think pulling rank would force me to adapt to your definitions of propriety, when you have never once interrupted your life on my behalf?

Did you really think protecting a relationship that has always depended on my initiative would have greater weight than maintaining, caring for, and supporting the family I’ve made and lived with more than twice the time I ever lived with you?

Did you really think I would refashion my life and character after your expectations for me?

Did you really think I would hand over my autonomy to you, simply because you refused to listen or learn anything about me and my family?

Did you really think I would interpret your attempts to control me and my family as love?

Did you really think I don’t understand love enough to recognize your protestations as a farce?

Did you really think your opinion was more important to me than my daughter you are disparaging?

Did you really think you could stand on traditional definitions of family to demand my allegiance to you, no matter how it injured or damaged me and my loved ones?

Did you really think ties to a denomination that kicked me out over their new declaration of faith would keep me in check?

Did you really think I am more afraid of the god you serve than the One who gave his very life out of grace and love to include, value, redeem, welcome, and reconcile people your church continues kicking to the curb?

Did you really think the systems you appear to worship matter more to me than serving humanity when that service has taken me to new countries, cultures, cities, and language groups while barring me an average income?

What were you thinking in making me choose between my daughter’s well-being and being part of your lives?

You didn’t balk at deleting me from the obituary you asked me to write. With the same delete key, you wrote me out of your lives.

I can’t say it wasn’t hurtful. I can’t say it wasn’t disappointing. I will say thanks for clarifying just how little our relationship ever meant to you. It’s definitely not worth any more investment on my part.



— ©Copyright 2025, Christopher B. Harbin 



http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

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