"Within these pages...you're on the verge of a miracle!" — Michael Delgiorno, Award-winning radio host, WTN Nashville
"Through these pages you will find a raw vulnerability that will have you both crying and rejoicing...and setting you on your own collision course with Jesus at the foot of the cross." —Brian Hoffpauer, Recording Artist
|
|
|
Q&A with Craig Daliessio
Author of “An Orphan in the House of God”
This book is deeply personal. What motivated you to write it?
I knew something was wrong inside. I’d grown tired of what passed for a relationship with God. I knew I was a Christian…I knew I was born again, but it didn’t feel like I was His child. A series of events started me down the road of considering whether I even knew what it was to be a child at all. I started writing on January 22, 2022 as just a means of getting all this stuff out. My friend Rick Elias, the Christian singer, used to say that songwriting was like prayer for him…it was sacred. For me, writing is the same way. I was writing it out on the page, but I was praying and probing at the same time. It wasn’t long before I realized it would become a book. It took ten months, and God worked on me and healed my wounds as I wrote. In fact, He distinctly told me He would only heal me as I wrote. I had to see the project through.
You had tumultuous relationships with your father and stepfather. Share how those affected you and your understanding of God.
Both men defined what it meant for me to be a child, in different ways. I didn’t know about my biological father until I was 21. I had no relationship with him at all. So, my formative years were influenced by my stepfather, Tom. He married my mother when I was four and I was always told he was my father. I was told that I had no memory of him prior to that because he sailed on oil tankers and was gone so much that I didn’t remember him. I had no reason to question that, being four years old. From the very first encounter with him, I was scared to death of him. Until I was about 15, I thought he would eventually kill me. He was perpetually angry. His anger, coupled with his distance and aloofness, caused me to see God the same way. We all project our earthly fathers onto our Heavenly Father. I saw God as the same angry, tyrannical, not-to-be-pleased, distant Father that Tom was. Later, when I found out about Bob, my biological father, and especially as I pursued a relationship with him, I saw God as rejecting me the way my own dad did. My dad was a great man…college athlete, war hero, doctoral degree. A great husband and father to his family. His rejection of me would have made sense if he had been a Hell’s Angel or a vagrant. But he was by all accounts a truly great man and because he rejected me, I believed it must be because of me. I started projecting that onto God. I didn’t think God recognized me as His son and that He was embarrassed by my existence. I felt completely alone.
Many children have been raised and are being raised in similar dysfunctional environments. What can the church do to help them?
The church I grew up in probably saved my life, in that it was a very close-knit, family environment. There were great, godly men there whom I could look to as male role models. But that didn’t fix the problem or undo the harm…it merely lessened the effect of the blows. I say “merely,” but I’m not undervaluing it. Honestly, that is what saved my life. But in some ways, it only numbed the pain just enough for me to not die from it. I think the church needs to really understand that not everything is as it appears on the surface, especially with young people. My mother was an active member of that church. She sang in the choir, volunteered for things, made sure we were there for every service, and yet she rejected me as much as her husband did. Tom was not a believer, so he never came to church, but when he did (Christmas and Easter) he put on enough of a display that nobody suspected anything was amiss at home. Several people I went to church with, including my youth pastor from back then, remarked that they always wondered why they never saw my stepfather (who they also assumed was my dad) at any of my sporting events or church activities. I think when you see a kid who seems to be there alone, you can probably conclude it’s like that at home too. Every church has spiritual orphans in their congregation. More churches need to take spiritual warfare seriously. The spirit of orphanage I write about in the book is a real thing. Satan is as real as God. Don’t ignore the way he does battle.
I knew something was wrong inside. I’d grown tired of what passed for a relationship with God. I knew I was a Christian…I knew I was born again, but it didn’t feel like I was His child. A series of events started me down the road of considering whether I even knew what it was to be a child at all. I started writing on January 22, 2022 as just a means of getting all this stuff out. My friend Rick Elias, the Christian singer, used to say that songwriting was like prayer for him…it was sacred. For me, writing is the same way. I was writing it out on the page, but I was praying and probing at the same time. It wasn’t long before I realized it would become a book. It took ten months, and God worked on me and healed my wounds as I wrote. In fact, He distinctly told me He would only heal me as I wrote. I had to see the project through.
You had tumultuous relationships with your father and stepfather. Share how those affected you and your understanding of God.
Both men defined what it meant for me to be a child, in different ways. I didn’t know about my biological father until I was 21. I had no relationship with him at all. So, my formative years were influenced by my stepfather, Tom. He married my mother when I was four and I was always told he was my father. I was told that I had no memory of him prior to that because he sailed on oil tankers and was gone so much that I didn’t remember him. I had no reason to question that, being four years old. From the very first encounter with him, I was scared to death of him. Until I was about 15, I thought he would eventually kill me. He was perpetually angry. His anger, coupled with his distance and aloofness, caused me to see God the same way. We all project our earthly fathers onto our Heavenly Father. I saw God as the same angry, tyrannical, not-to-be-pleased, distant Father that Tom was. Later, when I found out about Bob, my biological father, and especially as I pursued a relationship with him, I saw God as rejecting me the way my own dad did. My dad was a great man…college athlete, war hero, doctoral degree. A great husband and father to his family. His rejection of me would have made sense if he had been a Hell’s Angel or a vagrant. But he was by all accounts a truly great man and because he rejected me, I believed it must be because of me. I started projecting that onto God. I didn’t think God recognized me as His son and that He was embarrassed by my existence. I felt completely alone.
Many children have been raised and are being raised in similar dysfunctional environments. What can the church do to help them?
The church I grew up in probably saved my life, in that it was a very close-knit, family environment. There were great, godly men there whom I could look to as male role models. But that didn’t fix the problem or undo the harm…it merely lessened the effect of the blows. I say “merely,” but I’m not undervaluing it. Honestly, that is what saved my life. But in some ways, it only numbed the pain just enough for me to not die from it. I think the church needs to really understand that not everything is as it appears on the surface, especially with young people. My mother was an active member of that church. She sang in the choir, volunteered for things, made sure we were there for every service, and yet she rejected me as much as her husband did. Tom was not a believer, so he never came to church, but when he did (Christmas and Easter) he put on enough of a display that nobody suspected anything was amiss at home. Several people I went to church with, including my youth pastor from back then, remarked that they always wondered why they never saw my stepfather (who they also assumed was my dad) at any of my sporting events or church activities. I think when you see a kid who seems to be there alone, you can probably conclude it’s like that at home too. Every church has spiritual orphans in their congregation. More churches need to take spiritual warfare seriously. The spirit of orphanage I write about in the book is a real thing. Satan is as real as God. Don’t ignore the way he does battle.
You were homeless for many years. Talk about that experience.
That is a long story, but the gist of it is, I was in the mortgage industry and very successful at it. I owned a wonderful little home in the country in Tennessee. I went through a divorce in 1999 and never remarried. My daughter was only 18 months old when we divorced, and I just wanted to focus on being her dad. I was worried about the effects of divorce on her. So, I stayed single and tried to make that home a refuge. In 2007, the mortgage industry began to collapse and the company I worked for (at the time the largest privately funded lender in the country) closed its doors. I lost my career, and then my home. By this time my ex-wife had remarried, and her husband was very abusive (they have since divorced) and my daughter was always in his crosshairs. I couldn’t find work in Nashville at the time, and I couldn’t leave town for a job because I was her only line of defense. So, I slept in my car, showered at the county rec center, worked odd jobs, and remained in her world. By this time, I had found out about my biological father, and I knew what it was to grow up without a dad in my life…at least one that loved me. So, I stayed, and in doing so, had to live homeless for several years.
Your pursuit of God continued in the midst of a lot of pain and heartache. Why do you believe you were so persistent?
When I went through a soul-crushing divorce, I looked for some resources for divorced men, written from a Christian perspective, but I just couldn’t find much. Divorced men are relegated to the desert in the church. I knew in my soul that I was in for a hard road, and I also knew that if I didn’t purposefully run TO God, I would run from Him. There would be no middle ground. So, I decided to stay true to my faith and pursue Him, regardless of what I was going through. I had lost everything by then. My job, my home, my marriage, and my fatherhood—which I treasure more than anything else on earth— was limited to once a week and every other weekend. I was alone, 850 miles from my lifelong friends, and I had to weather this storm on my own. I knew that I could either stay close to God and rely on my faith—tattered and jagged around the edges as it might be— or crawl into a bottle or stick a gun in my mouth. The pain and heartache really revealed more about God to me than the easy times.
What do you wish adults, who had similar upbringings as you, knew about God?
I wish they knew how much God really loves them. I mean REALLY loves them. I wish they knew that He placed a star in the sky that awaited their birth. I explain that in the book. I wish they knew that He smiles at them. He laughs at their silly jokes. He saw them hit that home run in fifth grade when their parents weren’t in the stands. He caught their tears when they didn’t get asked to dance at the prom. He was proud of them when they graduated college against all odds. I wish they knew that His heart breaks when their hearts break. That when Peter told us to drop our anxieties at His feet, that was God’s voice practically begging us to do it. I wish they knew how He waits every day to hear their voice. That their prayers don’t have to be so formal and so full of apology and confession and that He just loves hearing their voice, like any really great dad. I wish they could catch just a glimpse of the truth that they don’t have to be broken forever. I wish they knew that their broken earthly childhood can be replaced with an amazing childhood with their Father in Heaven, who loves them beyond comprehension. I wish they could come to find out how much easier it is to serve Him and to live “circumspect,” as Paul says, when we do it motivated by His love, not the dread fear of His wrath. I learned all this as I wrote the book. This is really what changed my life.
How did you learn to forgive your parents?
I want people who lived through abusive childhoods to know that it is possible to forgive. That doesn’t mean restoration is required. Some people remain dangerous to us, and we have to set limits and boundaries. But they can still be forgiven. It also doesn’t mean you forget. Recounting my childhood—and especially seeing how it affected me long into my adult years—could have led me to bitterness. But allowing that would have meant the continuation of the abuse, except the wounds would have been self-inflicted. I forgave Tom for what he did. I’ve forgiven my mother and I forgave my dad. But I’ll likely never have anything even close to a relationship with them again, this side of eternity. Tom passed away in 2019, and my father died in August 2022, as I was in the process of writing this book. My mother is alive, but we have not spoken in 18 years. I have no ill will at all. The opposite of love is not hatred. It’s ambivalence. If I found out she was homeless or hungry, I would make calls and make sure she had shelter and food. But the relationship is harmful to me and my daughter, and I have a duty to protect her, and myself. But I still forgive. I have to. Otherwise, all this is for naught and it’s just a different kind of captivity.
That is a long story, but the gist of it is, I was in the mortgage industry and very successful at it. I owned a wonderful little home in the country in Tennessee. I went through a divorce in 1999 and never remarried. My daughter was only 18 months old when we divorced, and I just wanted to focus on being her dad. I was worried about the effects of divorce on her. So, I stayed single and tried to make that home a refuge. In 2007, the mortgage industry began to collapse and the company I worked for (at the time the largest privately funded lender in the country) closed its doors. I lost my career, and then my home. By this time my ex-wife had remarried, and her husband was very abusive (they have since divorced) and my daughter was always in his crosshairs. I couldn’t find work in Nashville at the time, and I couldn’t leave town for a job because I was her only line of defense. So, I slept in my car, showered at the county rec center, worked odd jobs, and remained in her world. By this time, I had found out about my biological father, and I knew what it was to grow up without a dad in my life…at least one that loved me. So, I stayed, and in doing so, had to live homeless for several years.
Your pursuit of God continued in the midst of a lot of pain and heartache. Why do you believe you were so persistent?
When I went through a soul-crushing divorce, I looked for some resources for divorced men, written from a Christian perspective, but I just couldn’t find much. Divorced men are relegated to the desert in the church. I knew in my soul that I was in for a hard road, and I also knew that if I didn’t purposefully run TO God, I would run from Him. There would be no middle ground. So, I decided to stay true to my faith and pursue Him, regardless of what I was going through. I had lost everything by then. My job, my home, my marriage, and my fatherhood—which I treasure more than anything else on earth— was limited to once a week and every other weekend. I was alone, 850 miles from my lifelong friends, and I had to weather this storm on my own. I knew that I could either stay close to God and rely on my faith—tattered and jagged around the edges as it might be— or crawl into a bottle or stick a gun in my mouth. The pain and heartache really revealed more about God to me than the easy times.
What do you wish adults, who had similar upbringings as you, knew about God?
I wish they knew how much God really loves them. I mean REALLY loves them. I wish they knew that He placed a star in the sky that awaited their birth. I explain that in the book. I wish they knew that He smiles at them. He laughs at their silly jokes. He saw them hit that home run in fifth grade when their parents weren’t in the stands. He caught their tears when they didn’t get asked to dance at the prom. He was proud of them when they graduated college against all odds. I wish they knew that His heart breaks when their hearts break. That when Peter told us to drop our anxieties at His feet, that was God’s voice practically begging us to do it. I wish they knew how He waits every day to hear their voice. That their prayers don’t have to be so formal and so full of apology and confession and that He just loves hearing their voice, like any really great dad. I wish they could catch just a glimpse of the truth that they don’t have to be broken forever. I wish they knew that their broken earthly childhood can be replaced with an amazing childhood with their Father in Heaven, who loves them beyond comprehension. I wish they could come to find out how much easier it is to serve Him and to live “circumspect,” as Paul says, when we do it motivated by His love, not the dread fear of His wrath. I learned all this as I wrote the book. This is really what changed my life.
How did you learn to forgive your parents?
I want people who lived through abusive childhoods to know that it is possible to forgive. That doesn’t mean restoration is required. Some people remain dangerous to us, and we have to set limits and boundaries. But they can still be forgiven. It also doesn’t mean you forget. Recounting my childhood—and especially seeing how it affected me long into my adult years—could have led me to bitterness. But allowing that would have meant the continuation of the abuse, except the wounds would have been self-inflicted. I forgave Tom for what he did. I’ve forgiven my mother and I forgave my dad. But I’ll likely never have anything even close to a relationship with them again, this side of eternity. Tom passed away in 2019, and my father died in August 2022, as I was in the process of writing this book. My mother is alive, but we have not spoken in 18 years. I have no ill will at all. The opposite of love is not hatred. It’s ambivalence. If I found out she was homeless or hungry, I would make calls and make sure she had shelter and food. But the relationship is harmful to me and my daughter, and I have a duty to protect her, and myself. But I still forgive. I have to. Otherwise, all this is for naught and it’s just a different kind of captivity.
About Craig Daliessio:
|
Craig Daliessio is the author of six previous books including “A Ragamuffin’s Christmas,” “Nowhere to Lay My Head,” and “Sometimes Daddies Cry: What a Dad Really Feels about Divorce.” He has a B.S. degree from Liberty University in Religion, and is an award-winning mortgage banker. He lives with his daughter in Lynchburg, Virginia. For more information visit www.craigdaliessio.com.
|
|
|
|
|