Dear Pastor Dave,
You touched my heart many years ago when I was in my late 30s. I grew up without a father and in that I found it hard to understand that kind of love, a father’s love. My mother wasn’t so loving either. She was verbally, physically, and mentally abusive and she seemed to carry the world on her shoulders with five kids and no support from my dad. Even so, I longed to have a dad throughout my childhood, and I was jealous of my friends who had their complete family.
When I became an adult, I still struggled with having someone love me outside of my relatives. I was in a relationship for 18 years and I moved to Winchester to get away from that abusive and one-sided marriage. During my marriage, though, I prayed a lot to God for the abuse to stop and for my marriage to be saved. In the end, I felt like God had let me down.
After moving to Winchester, I entered a relationship and gain a blessing, my son. He woke my heart up in a different way. I loved him as he grew in my womb and couldn’t wait until the day I could hold him.
By the time my son was 2 years old, which was in 2005, I attended my first Victory Church Service. That is when I was introduced to you, Pastor Dave. It was my meet and greet as a newcomer. After a couple years at Victory Church, I still struggled with a love issue. Not with my relatives or son, but my father’s love. I still didn’t have that relationship I had longed for and at one Father’s Day church service you caught my attention. It was as though you were speaking to me and I know many others in the church.
You see, I didn’t just struggle with love from my parents, but I never understood God’s love or how I could even love him too. You stood up at the podium and God used you in a wonderful way like he has many of times. You spoke to the congregation and said a lot of you have grown up with a Father’s Love. You have been protected, cared for, and cherished by your father, but not everyone understands that kind of love and it is hard for someone to understand how God could love them when they never even received that kind of love from their own father.
Your words hit me hard and I broke down in tears. I never looked at it that way before. I went home and tried to understand how I could know God’s love since I didn’t have my own father’s love. I looked at my little boy and watched him while he played. I thought about how much I love him. How full my heart was because of my son and of how much he could do wrong, and I would still love him. How when he falls, I pick him up. How when he cries, I hold him. How when he is hungry, I feed him and when he is cold, I clothe him. I would do anything I could to protect, feed and shelter him.
There is no limit to my love for my son and as much as I love my son, I learned with your help that God loves me that much and much more. You have touched my life and my family’s lives in many ways since I started at Victory Church in 2005.
Thank you, Pastor Dave for all you’ve done. You have left a great impact in our lives and a wonderful widespread Impact in a lot of others too. We love you, appreciate you, and are praying for you.