The Pathway to the Father's Heart: Discovering True Identity

By Terrina Wilder

The Pathway to the Father's Heart: Discovering True Identity is a biography about overcoming traumatic influences to find real meaning in life. We are all born with an inherent need to belong and our first bonding experiences are usually with parents. Terrina Wilder takes you on a journey through personal experiences with key relationships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terrina Wilder
• Release date: Feb 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781641840675

Book preview

DEDICATION

This book is being dedicated to my first love, my heavenly Father. As such, I share the following prayer:

Lord, I surrender my desires over to You. I trust that my desires, whether fulfilled in my timing or not, will not cause me to think I have failed. You must be my main focus. I know You want me to prosper and be successful, but I don’t want to lose sight of You or Your hand. Draw me close to You. Lord, You say I must depend on You, and You’ll show me the way to go. I need You, Father, to direct me, to direct my thoughts and the desires for this new season of life.

May You continue to be on my mind early in the morning and when I retire for the evening. When I seek You, let me find You. I am convinced that there is power and authority in my prayers. I thank You for showing me how to love. Continue to work on my heart, Lord. You have never failed me! You have modeled Yourself as the perfect husband and confidant, and I praise Your Most Holy Name. Amen.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Early Life

2 A Broken Foundation

3  Seeking a Father

4  Early Influencers

5  Meeting Sam

6  First Encounter with My Father

7  Nelson’s Influence and Falter

8  My First Daddy Figure

9  Changing Courses

10  Persevering Through the Challenges of Life

11  Insight from a Wilderness Experience

12  My Family Reunion

13  Sam Turns on the Charm—Again

14  Following My Heart, Not God’s Plan

15  Breaking Curses: The Road to Healing

16  Journaling: An Intimate Connection with the Father

17  Restoring Relationships

Conclusion

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are so many people to thank who have helped me in completing this biography. I first want to thank my dear friend Alicia Braxton for taking the time out of her busy schedule to encourage me and offer her honest perspective when mine was a little off-centered.

My family, we have experienced so much in life together or merely by association. It still amazes me how God designed our family. My hope is that we will grow in His love to, in turn, love each other as He has called us to do. I do love you all and desire God’s best for your lives. May the covenant of His peace be upon each of you for many generations to come.

To the counselors at Denton County Friends of the Family and Deliverance Prayer Ministers at Mining the Truth and Never Gives Up Ministries, thank you for helping me navigate through areas where healing from deep emotional and spiritual wounding had occurred. I’ve experienced such freedom in being who I truly am to live life with godly purpose.

To my fellow Christian sisters and brothers—Tara Kreuger, Sonia Mayeaux Morales, Craig Groshans, and so many others —who extended compassion, love, patience, and kindness to me as I waited to hear the DNA test results or walked alongside me during very low periods. Proverbs 27:17 is very true: As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. Your impact on my life is priceless; it’s eternal. Thank you so much!

INTRODUCTION

My story, while unique to me, is in many regards similar to what thousands have experienced in their lives.

I grew up in a large midwestern community while neither knowing my biological father nor having any significant relationships with other adult men. I struggled with poor self-esteem and feelings of loneliness and abandonment.

It wasn’t the solid foundation for a good life that I would have built, but the experience shaped me into the woman I am today. In retrospect, my early childhood opened the door for God to step in and become my Father. He orchestrated opportunities and divine appointments with people who came into my life to either teach me a lesson, help me grow personally, or point me toward the next steps I needed to take.

I love my parents, both my mother and my stepfather. I have a great deal of respect for them because they did the best they could with what they had. Their own upbringing was less than stellar, and the insecurities and doubts they brought into adulthood shaped their worldview and how they would parent me and my siblings.

Growing up without my biological father in my life left a gaping wound, as though a part of me was missing. I longed for a relationship with him and looked forward to the day I would eventually meet him—something I was forbidden to do. Yet it happened shortly after I graduated from college.

A series of disappointments and stressful relationships left me guarding my heart to protect it from further heartbreak. I was determined to not let anyone get close enough to hurt me again.

While the independence I displayed for the world to see enabled me to become a strong, confident woman, it also left me secretly longing for a type of love that I had yet to experience.

As I grew older, I ventured on a journey to salve those wounds and insecurities in order to prove to myself and others that I was fully capable of achieving a successful life despite my shattered start. I achieved things that others my age were unable to attain; yet there was a brokenness that always seemed to surface at just the right time to block whatever progress I was trying to make.

Those troubles forced me to press in even closer to a relationship I formed with my heavenly Father—rather He forged with me—who promised me repeatedly that He would never leave me nor forsake me. He promised to be more than just a cheerleader, but rather the God of infinite possibilities and unbroken promises. As I learned to trust God more, amazing things began to happen in my life.

He brought restoration not only to my life but also to the relationship I now enjoy with my earthly father. He has opened doors and shined a lamp onto my feet to guide my steps. I wasn’t always obedient to His prompting, but He loved me anyway and kept me from becoming a recluse until I was ready to admit that His way was best.

Many of the names have been changed, and as you read this book, I invite you to share my journey—to cry as I cried, to contemplate the choices I was required to make, to celebrate as I experienced victory, and to bask in a love I discovered that is so profound, so vast, and so incredibly genuine that it overshadows any longings that remain in my heart.

My God is my superhero, leading me from one personal victory to another, all the while assuring me that if I seek Him first, He will continue to fulfill every desire of my heart because my heart will be closely aligned with His.

CHAPTER 1

Early Life

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. 

—Ps. 139:13–16

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is a large industrial city along the shores of Lake Michigan and a few hours north of Chicago. Milwaukee was immortalized in television shows like Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days.

When my mother was just sixteen years old and in high school, she became pregnant with my sister, Rose. My mother dropped out of high school and would later return to school to get her GED. She truly desired to get ahead in life with the hope of having a career, a house of her own, and someone to share her life with one day.

Rose’s father never married my mother. After all, he was just a teenager himself when my sister was born. During those early years, my mother and sister lived with my grandmother, who we called Grandmo. Grandmo had hoped my mother would finish high school, land a good job, and settle down with a good man.

Prior to me arriving only three years later, my mother would have her own rented place before her twentieth birthday.

My mother and father met during a time when she was trying to move on from a relationship she had with Patrick, who would later become my stepfather. Randolph, my father, was nineteen and considered to be a father-like figure to his younger siblings back in Louisiana. He was very giving in his finances, and this trait would often make him a target for others to abuse.

At some point, my mother and father clashed and ended their relationship before she even knew she was pregnant with me. I think my mother felt she had disappointed Grandmo and regretted being pregnant by a man she really didn’t love. Randolph would learn in a painful way that my mother was still in love with Patrick. Unfortunately, harsh words were exchanged privately and publicly between the two, which had a direct impact on Randolph having a role in my life.

I grew up in a blue-collar, middle-class neighborhood where both parents generally worked jobs to help make ends meet. Many of the families near us were intact with both mother and father living at home and sharing responsibilities of raising their children, although they may not necessarily have been married. If the biological father was absent, there was generally a father figure living in the home.

One of my best friends, Crystal, lived next door with her mother and father. But the neighbors on the other side of our house were an older couple who were raising several of their grandchildren. I don’t remember where the grandchildren’s parents were.

Crystal was the only girl I really knew who had a father living in the home, and he scared me because he never smiled. He was pleasant to me, but something about him scared me, so I never viewed him as approachable or as a nurturing father.

Crystal was younger than I was by four or five years. We both loved playing with dolls and we would retreat into this land of make-believe until I was eleven years old. Some would say I was too old to play with dolls at eleven, but I really enjoyed escaping into a world where I could create and control life’s outcome. Playing with dolls allowed me to do just that. We would push our dolls in buggies in the neighborhood talking to them as though they were real and making up stories about their lives.

I had one black, slender Barbie doll, and she was the mother to two medium-sized white dolls which I claimed to