Wanted: A Daughter’s Discovery
Welcome back to our stories. Forgive us as these last weeks have kept us from posting here. We had a horrendous winter ice storm that took down trees and powerlines as we have never seen. The clean-up was extraordinary and on-going. Our family was without electricity for 10 days and internet, etc. for 15, which kept us from any online involvement. Thank God, we are back and have stories to share! The following is one near and dear to our hearts. When we first met Carine (name has been changed) there was a bonding spiritually and for many years have loved her and welcomed her as part of our family. We share with tremendous joy and honor what God the Father has done in this young woman’s life. To God be the glory!!
My name is Carine, and I am from the beautiful country of Armenia. Often when I tell people where I am from, they look at me with a blank expression—from where? But if you could come to my country, I believe you would fall in love with my people and our natural beauty. Armenia sits in the south of Transcaucasia. It covers the northeast part of the Armenian Highlands (located in the Alps-Himalaya range).
Our tiny nation is landlocked—we border Georgia, Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan, and the disputed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia is a country of majestic mountains (47% of the landmass), rivers, and the beautiful Lake Sevan. Mt. Ararat, from the time of Noah, can be seen from Yerevan, our capital. My country covers over 29.8 thousand square kilometers (nearly 12,000 square miles).
Republic Square in the capital, Yerevan, during summer months
Within our borders lies a people rich in history, culture, Christianity (the first Christian nation, 301 AD), and a deep sense of national identity. The genocide of 1915 - 1922, by the Turks, heavily scars us. The continual and current conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region has resulted in nearly every family being affected personally. Forgiveness does not come easy, but remembering does. However, unless we can forgive in our own personal lives and move into forgiveness to the peoples around us, we cannot grow in freedom as a country. We are a deeply loving and caring people but also a nation with deep wounds.
When I was 11 years old, I became a believer and started going to church. I grew up and served in the church, but I had many wounds in my heart. I didn’t share these hurts with anyone. I even tried to hide it from God because I didn’t know how this would affect my relationships with others. I didn’t understand that God wanted to bring healing and freedom into my life. In 2011 God called me to attend a missionary training school I had heard about from some friends. During this time, He began to clearly show me that He wanted to heal my broken heart and for me to share my story of His healing with my people. It was tough for me to accept this challenge because I had only learned to hide all my pain during my whole life.
I experienced way too much rejection in my life; I often felt unlovable and unwanted. These deep feelings of rejection came from my family and friends resulting in a considerable deficit of love in every area of my life. Because of this, I had many relational problems. When I went to the missionary school, we talked about what we were expecting from God during our weeks together. Many of the students, including myself, replied that we wanted to learn to hear the voice of God and have a much deeper personal relationship with Him. Slowly, during this time, I began to understand that all the hurts in my life —rejection, wounds, and especially, unforgiveness— were hindering me from hearing God’s voice. I also had a very challenging time accepting God as a loving Father. I knew about Him; I knew that He is Almighty, but I had not experienced his Fatherly love in my life. I had never known the love of an earthly father. How could I possibly understand the love of a Heavenly Father? I had no role model.
During the second week of my missionary training school, our teachers, Jim and Debby, came to teach and share their life stories with us. This week was the most difficult to face. However, it resulted in being the most beautiful time of my entire school. Jim and Debby shared their testimonies. They told us that later in the week if we felt comfortable, we would be invited to share and confess any unforgiveness towards people in our lives whom we needed to forgive. We would have time for prayer and allow God to begin to heal any wounds. Such an impossible concept for me to grasp! However, every truth shared from the Bible touched my heart profoundly and spoke to my soul during these days. Finally, by the end of the week, with no small amount of fear, I humbled myself and chose to open my life before God and my peers. I knew unless I was vulnerable to let people really know me, I would continue to be stuck.
Nestled in a peaceful valley with the majesty of Mt. Ararat in the distance, we students and staff gathered in a small room to share our life stories. Even with the beauty outside our window reminding me of God’s faithfulness, the four walls seemed to close in on me. I felt suffocated, and it took over an hour to share my life story. As I was shaking all over and tears streaming down my face, God prompted me to disclose the many hurtful and embarrassing events that I had hidden for a long time.
You see, I definitely was an unwanted child. My father often spoke of wanting to leave our family, and my mother did not know how to cope with me, her unborn child. My grandfather tried hard to convince my mother to abort me. Once, in anger, he wanted to throw me into a nearby river when I was still very young. My mother told this to me as I was growing up. I never could understand why she would share that horrible event with me.
There were always significant conflicts in our family. After a time, my father did leave to work in Russia, where he eventually died. I was only two years old when he took off. I don't remember my father. After his death, my mother cut off all communication with my father's family. Even with all of this, my childhood at times seemed good, maybe because of many things I didn't understand.
My teenage years though were terrible. So much anger, resentment, and hatred, that my mother and brother would often beat me during my teen years. I was deeply confused and unable to understand why. I went to Sunday school and tried desperately to be an obedient child. For some reason unknown to me, my mother wanted my brother, but not her daughter. I grew up with this massive cloud of being unwanted over my life. A heaviness and deep hurt I could neither explain nor run from.
Approaching my 14th year, my mother went to find work in Germany, leaving my brother and me in my grandparents' care. These years were not easy. They were complicated and painful. I missed my mother, and I cried every day. Somehow this pain led me closer to God. I found myself becoming more and more involved in church and becoming a part of that community.
After my mom left, life did not go according to her plan. She hoped to find a job, earn money and bring us to her. However, eight years went by before we saw my mother again. She was able to get travel documents and came back to Armenia for her father's funeral. She was with us for only eight days. For these many years, I waited anxiously to see her again.
Unfortunately, upon seeing her, the meeting was full of disappointments—my mother had changed, I'd grown up. We didn't recognize each other. I still looked for opportunities to tell her about my achievements and get her approval. However, my mother told me that she came back only for the funeral of my grandfather. Before this time, her brother had also died, and it was not an easy time for her. But I had missed my mother terribly, and my mind could not understand why she did not feel the same way.
I remember when my mother first left for Germany. I chased after the bus with tears flowing down my face. I ran and ran until I realized that I could not catch the bus. It felt like I had lost the most valuable thing in my life. That feeling of loss stayed with me for a very long time. But this second time of her leaving, eight days after my grandfather's funeral, I did not feel anything. It was as if my heart was frozen. It was terrifying for me.
Sitting with the fellow students in my discipleship training school, I realized I had never felt so vulnerable. I desperately needed to speak out the deep roots of rejection from my childhood. I was coming to the conclusion that forgiveness was my only means of truly being free. I didn’t totally understand but I did not know what else to do and God seemed to be leading me to make a choice. If I would only take the first step.
As all eyes settled in on me, the students and teachers patiently waited. I began to share the story of my life. I choked on tears with indescribable emotional pain, and anguish flooded my being as I finally expressed forgiveness to my father for his abandonment. I spoke forgiveness to my brother for beating me. However, the turning point spiritually was the significant moment when I expressed forgiveness to my mother. Realizing deficits of love and rejection in her own life growing up helped me somewhat understand how she could be so damaging and cruel to me, her daughter. That was a freeing revelation. I was finally able to forgive her.
The staff gathered around and prayed for me. This took some time. When I eventually stood up, I experienced an overwhelming sensation like I had been reborn. A lightness settled upon me. It seemed my whole life I had been carrying such a heavy burden. God was setting me free from this weight of rejection, and ultimately unforgiveness, which had imprisoned me. It was as if I had carried a heavy ball and chain dragging me down, and a key had unlocked the chain and removed the intense heaviness and weight I carried. As I smiled and hugged my fellow students, for the first time in my life, the smile came from my heart.
Surprisingly, that was only the beginning of new and strange feelings I would experience in the coming weeks. My caring friends praying for me were the first to tell me how God had been involved in my birth and wanted me from the beginning. I was beautiful, lovable, and wonderful—created in His image. I was, and always have been, WANTED. For me, it was extremely unusual and, admittedly, challenging to hear and receive these affirmations. This time I spent in my missionary training school would be the beginning of the rest of my life—accepting God’s love for me and, yes, acceptance of myself.
Most importantly, this simple yet difficult act of forgiving my family opened the door to a new closeness with God the Father. The very next day, I began to hear God speak to me through His written Word and others as they encouraged me. His love became more real towards me. In the months to follow, my family's relationships slowly started to change as I began to relate to them differently than I had in the past. I asked God to help me see my brother and mother through His loving eyes. I wrote to them, and slowly the healing began. We worked through some misunderstandings, judgments, and restoration. Both my mother and brother in the years since have given their lives to the Lord. I now have my birth family who loves and wants me. God has been good!
In the years following this breakthrough in my life, whenever I have difficulties, I come to God as a Loving Father and received His comfort and healing directly from Him. It is beautiful to be loved and accepted by others, but that is nothing compared to being loved by the Father! God has also patiently taken me through some life lessons in loving others. I am encouraged to start comforting others with the same comfort I have received from God. It is a principle Paul teaches us in 2 Corinthians 1:3. Wherever I go, I am always sharing about the Father heart of God and experiencing first-hand how the Father’s nature of love and forgiveness is changing peoples’ lives.
Carine has been involved in leading international summer camps, sharing with many children, teenagers, and adults. They've learned how much their heavenly Father loves them, accepting His love and sharing with others. She is currently coaching many people in improvement and growth in different areas of their life, reaching their goals, and achieving satisfaction. God continues to use her as she shares the Father heart of God to those He brings into her life.