I guess we all have our one thing that hurts the most. When I look back on my life I see years wasted seeking something I’d never find; the truth. I wanted to know who my father was. I had a million questions that would follow that simple piece of information. But that was the first stop in the game of Clue that I found myself trapped inside of.

I never got to meet him. I was 28 when I received the phone call from a distant aunt. “I just thought you might want to know that your daddy died this morning,” she said. It was a terrible and a wonderful day. Although many fantasies were laid to rest of what I might say to him when I finally got the chance to see him face to face, I did receive the answer I’d yearned for; his name.

Years later I came to know a new father – a Heavenly one. It was a season filled with wander as I had dreams, visions and even a small inner voice that would often wake me in the middle of the night with the same message, “I am father to the fatherless.”

And today as I prepare to fly a red-eye back from Hawaii to the main land and then onward to Texas from LA I struggle with a new quest for truth. You see, years ago, I prayed a prayer to Heaven after reading an article that spoke about the Bible. The writer took scriptures and laid out an intepratation of what it means to be loved by a man in God’s design of things. He said, “The husband should love his wife the way Jesus loves the church. And Jesus died for the church.” I imagined what it must feel like to be loved so deeply by another – to have a man in my life who would put me first and unselfishly sacrifice even his own life for me. Lord knows I’d never been loved like that before. The marriage I was in at the time was a far cry from such a divine arrangement of the heart, body and soul.

That man divorced me years later and another came in as if he’d been sent through a revolving door on cue. I’ve spent the last 7 years waiting for the revelation of his heart. Not once has even spoken the words, “I love you” to me. When I’ve asked questions that I hoped would lead to such a confession I was met with anger and resistance. He made me feel I was doing something wrong to require transparency of the heart from him.

I just sent him a text message that was hard to write. I told him how badly I’d been hurt in the past by lies and avoidance of the truth. I told him that his inability to meet my wounds with compassion and care had caused me a great deal of confusion and pain. Then I concluded that my hope is for him to acknowledge my words and do better the next time someone like me crosses his path.

I would assume we’re all wounded in our own way by something in the past. It’s not for us to judge what the outcome of these experiences produce in another. But it might do us all well to see the beauty in listening, observing and at least trying to have empathy in the things we don’t understand.

I know I want to try. I don’t want anyone to ever feel the pain I’ve felt, nor do I want to be the trigger for another’s wounds.