Dad Issues

When I got prophesied over at the Prayer Vigil, I almost dismissed what they said about my dad and I. They said that he didn't approve of or appreciate my style of creativity (or something to that effect), and basically made it sound like I had something to work out there.

When one of my best friends growing up moved into my dad's spare room this summer, he was excited. But he told me later about how frustrated he was, 'cause he said he could never seem to gain my dad's approval. I told him that I never tried.

But after that prophecy, I recalled how lowly my father had spoken of the hours and hours of time I was putting into editing videos from our mission trip to the Philippines. I told him how excited I was 'cause they asked me, rather than their media guy, to edit, 'cause they thought I could do it better. My dad said that they didn't want me for the job: they wanted someone who'd do it for free.

So I worked for hours on end, trimming eight hours of footage down to five minutes, working several full work days at the church. And when my dad offered to take the youth pastor and me out to eat, he joked, but in a fairly serious tone, about how "London doesn't seem to understand that a job is where someone works and gets paid. Meanwhile, I'm footing the bill for it."

So yeah, the work I put into the mission trip, which is a thing universally respected because it is a selfless act of going to another place for the sole purpose of helping those who cannot help themselves, was dismissed as a waste of time and effort. The one thing that, in my eyes, is irrefutably respectable, was now tossed aside because I still could not support myself while doing it.