From One Father to Another: A Story of Redemption

“As a Christian, I don’t believe that anyone can actually ruin my life. If I believe God when He says He makes all things work together for my good (Rom 8:28), then it’s not true that my life can be ruined.

I grew up in suburban Houston, Texas, the son of a business executive father and a stay-at-home mother. Both my parents were intellectuals with college degrees. My mother gave up her Southern Baptist loyalties and converted to Roman Catholicism to appease her husband’s family. She also surrendered her dream of being a writer and turned down a scholarship to the Ivy League college, Bryn Mawr, when she graduated to help her sister take care of her new baby. Her sister lived with their mother since her husband was in the service and not deployed locally. Along with my five siblings, we all lived together in a lovely home across the street from the Roman Catholic church and parochial school, which I attended through fifth grade

I loved getting up at 4:30am to be an altar boy. I loved the mass, mainly in Latin, with its liturgy, smells, and bells. In second grade, the nuns and priests would regularly pull me out of class so that I could recite the stations of the cross for the high schoolers, none of which enjoyed my heartfelt presentation. I was good at it and did it with passion. For several years, we lived a pretty idyllic life. School all week, Sunday mass, summers spent playing outside all day, shoeless and shirtless, until dinner time. My parents regularly entertained priests and my father’s business associates in our home. Occasionally, one of these out-of-town businessmen would take our entire family out for dinner at an expensive restaurant. This was a huge deal for my brothers, sisters, and me, as our mother cooked nearly every day of the year.

My parents signed me up for trumpet lessons in third or fourth grade. As a child, I had shown great interest in music. I studied the trumpet and rose to first chair in high school. You can hear this influence in my music today. We had terrific grandparents and relatives who loved us. My summers included trips to Alabama to visit my great aunt and uncle, who lived in an iconic Victorian, three-story house for a week. The adults would stay up all night, catching up and drinking. My siblings and cousins had the run of the house. There were lots of rooms to explore. We’d run around all night in the yard and throughout the house until we collapsed. We’d always be wakened early in the morning for the most wonderful southern homemade breakfast. Those are some of the most cherished memories of my youth.

It all came crashing down when it was discovered that my father was involved with another woman. He had also become an abusive alcoholic who berated my mother verbally night after night in drunken fits of rage. My mother eventually found enough courage to divorce my father, and she moved us to a very old, drafty frame house with no heat or air conditioning and holes in the wooden floor. It was the worst house in one of the most affluent towns in Texas. Everything changed. There was no child support or help from my father for our care. We were plunged into a deep poverty, which would plague us until, one by one, my siblings and I each grew old enough to strike out on our own. At age 11, I took on after-school jobs to buy some food and all of my clothes. It was all our mother could do to keep the leaky roof over our heads and minimal food on the table. I was too embarrassed to tell my friends the truth, and when they asked where my father was, I would tell them he was out of town for work. He was always out of town for work.

Before my parent’s divorce, my father had promised to send me to The Julliard School, the country's most prestigious fine arts school. Many of today’s musical giants attended Julliard, including film composer John Williams, brilliant cellist Yo-Yo-Ma, and exceptional trumpet player Wynton Marsalis, to name only a few. With the dissolution of my parents’ marriage, that promise was broken. But God had a pathway for hope for me. A most incredible thing happened. God sent an awakening to the world through The Jesus Movement. Houston was an important hub for the movement. God saved many, many people. He also healed people from physical infirmities and drug addictions. Through it all, there was a most incredible healing of souls. With salvation, God gave the gift of repentance, and many formerly broken relationships were healed, sometimes dramatically and sometimes quietly.

It was during this period that God reached into my wretched life and pulled me out of the abyss where I had languished long. I started attending bible studies and worship gatherings. At a bible study, a worship leader discovered I was a musician and asked if I played guitar. I told him no. He then taught me to play two chords on his guitar, which was the beginning of my career as a musician, artist, and worship leader. In stark contrast to the 70’s hippie movement, in Jesus, we found real hope, which comes from the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I rarely saw my father during this period. When he did make an appearance, it was brief and mostly uneventful. Sometimes, he and my mother would be coolly cordial to one another, and sometimes, they would not, usually based on her asking for financial assistance and him offering none. As I was still young, I naively held out hope that my parents would resolve their issues and reunite us as a happy family again, but it was not to be.

Not long after graduating from high school, I met a special girl whom I eventually married. I was determined not to repeat my parents failed marriage and set out, with much help mostly from men in my church, how to have a healthy marriage. My wife and I bought a small house, and one day, after the birth of our first child, I received a call from my father. He said he was in town and wanted to meet at a local restaurant with my siblings and me to “catch up.” We had done this once or twice a year for several years, and he expected to hear me say that we would accommodate him yet again. Except I didn’t. I took a deep breath and explained that my siblings and I were now older, had families of our own, and were no longer interested in playing this game where he pretended to be a loving, attentive father and were his devoted children. I went on to tell him that, if he was willing, he could stay with us in our home until he found employment and got his own place. He was silent while I explained this. When I was finished, there was a long silence followed by his saying that he “knew this day would come” and that I should not try to contact him again. O, the drama! Fortunately, I was now wise enough to see the situation for what it was and not let it destroy me. I had come to understand what healthy relationships look like, where people care for one another and put the interests of others before their own. It was my faith that put me on that path. I had long ago committed him to God, who alone makes crooked paths straight.

I only saw my father a couple of times after that, and I am comforted to know that he is in the hands of the Living God, Who made all things and wields all things for His pleasure (Rev 4:11). God revealed himself to me as my Heavenly Father, and I am forever thankful for this truth.

It’s been a process over the years to forgive my father. For a long time, when the Holy Spirit would bring him to mind, I would pray and ask God to help me. These days, I give much thought to Matthew 6, where Jesus, in teaching us how to pray, tells us to ask for forgiveness of our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Powerful words which I take not as a suggestion, but as a command. This has given me peace.

God led me to several godly men who ultimately provided fatherly advice to help me take the steps to become a better husband and father. Eventually, that fatherly wisdom extended to helping me become a business owner and step into the blessing God had given me by serving him through my business. He has provided for me through relationships and His Word what I needed to live a sanctified life and walk in wholeness. I have learned that God, the Maker of all things, uses everything in my life to shape and mold me into the Image of Jesus. Including, and perhaps especially, the most challenging and most unpleasant things.