The Tale of Two Fathers: What Abuse Taught Me About Discipline, and What Love Taught Me About Identity

Some lessons enter your life through pain.

Others enter through love.

When I look back at my childhood, I see two father figures who shaped me in very different ways. One taught me how to work, endure, and keep moving forward. The other taught me who I was, why I mattered, and where my identity truly came from.

One lesson came through hardship.

The other came through faith.

This is the story of two fathers: and how God used both experiences to help me understand discipline, identity, purpose, and freedom.

The man who walked into my childhood

I was five years old when a man walked into my life and met my mother. I will call him MC.

At the time, I was living with my mother in my grandmother’s home. My mother’s previous marriage had ended, and she had begun a relationship with MC. Before long, he became my stepfather.

I remember sensing that something was not right. I was only a child, but children often notice things adults try to explain away. There was something about him that made me uncomfortable.

Over the next nine years, my mother and I experienced verbal and physical abuse. Home was not always a place of safety. It was often a place of fear, confusion, and emotional pain.

I did not understand why my mother stayed. I did not understand why people we depended on could also hurt us. I only knew that I was growing up in circumstances that forced me to mature too early.

Eventually, I left home at fourteen and began another chapter of my life in the United States. The story of my childhood did not end when I left that house. Experiences like those stay with you. They influence how you think, how you respond, and how you see yourself.

But they do not have to own you forever.

I want to make something clear: abuse is wrong. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. The fact that I learned valuable lessons during that time does not excuse the harm that was done. Pain may teach us something, but that does not make the person who caused it right.

Still, one lesson came from that difficult season.

The lawn mower that became my first business

When I was around eleven or twelve years old, I asked MC for a bicycle.

I wanted what every kid wanted: a bike of my own. Instead of buying me one, he bought me a lawn mower.

Then he told me to earn the money and buy the bike myself.

At the time, it felt cruel. I did not see it as a business lesson. I saw it as being denied something I wanted.

But I took that lawn mower into the neighborhood and started cutting grass.

That became my first business.

I learned how to find customers, do the work, collect money, and save for what I wanted. I also delivered newspapers, worked with a milkman, and did concrete work by the time I was thirteen.

I learned to work hard.

I learned that desire alone does not produce results. If I wanted something, I had to take responsibility for earning it.

That work ethic followed me into adulthood. It helped me build businesses, overcome setbacks, and continue after failure. It gave me discipline: a willingness to do what needed to be done, even when I did not feel like doing it.

But discipline by itself is not enough.

You can work hard and still feel empty.

You can build a business and still not know who you are.

You can achieve goals and still be imprisoned by shame, anger, fear, or your past.

That is where my second Father changed everything.

The Father who taught me who I was

My second father figure entered my life when I was about three or four years old.

My grandmother introduced me to Him.

His name is Jesus.

My grandmother was a faithful Christian. She prayed, worshiped, and taught me that God loved me. She helped me understand that I had a purpose, even when my circumstances suggested otherwise.

As a child, I did not understand everything she was teaching me. But the words stayed with me.

I remember bringing my anger and pain to God. I would think about MC and the way he treated us. I wanted someone to agree with me, to condemn him, or to explain why my life was so difficult.

But Jesus did something deeper.

He reminded me that my identity was not determined by the man who hurt me.

I was not worthless because someone mistreated me.

I was not destined to become my pain.

I was not forgotten.

God loved me, and He had a purpose for my life.

That message became an anchor.

Over the years, I experienced more trials, failures, consequences, and disappointments. I made mistakes of my own. I have had to face hard truths about my decisions and accept responsibility for the damage I caused.

But through every season, God continued working on my heart.

He taught me that discipline can build your habits, but love builds your identity.

Discipline may teach you how to keep going.

Love teaches you why your life is worth continuing.

When your earthly father fails

Father’s Day has not always been easy for me.

I remember crying myself to sleep on Father’s Day because I did not have a good earthly father to call, celebrate, or wish a happy Father’s Day.

Even my biological father became another source of disappointment.

That kind of absence creates a wound. Many people understand it because they have lived it. Some grew up without a father. Some had a father who was physically present but emotionally absent. Some had a father who was abusive, addicted, angry, or incapable of giving love.

Others had a father who died before the relationship could be repaired.

If that is part of your story, I want you to know this: your earthly father’s failure does not define your worth.

A father may abandon you, but God does not.

A father may reject you, but God does not.

A father may fail to protect you, but God does not fail.

Psalm 68:3–5 describes God as a defender of the vulnerable and says that He is “a father of the fatherless.” You can read the full passage here.

That does not erase the pain of what happened. Faith does not require you to pretend that abuse did not happen or that abandonment did not hurt.

Faith gives you somewhere to take the pain.

It gives you a Father who can help you heal without allowing your past to become your identity.

What discipline taught me: and what love corrected

The first father figure taught me how to work.

The second Father taught me why I was working.

The first helped develop my discipline.

The second helped establish my identity.

But as I grew older, I had to learn an important distinction: discipline is not abuse.

A person can be demanding without being destructive. A parent can teach responsibility without using fear. Correction can be firm without becoming cruel.

Healthy discipline should help a person grow. Abuse attempts to control, humiliate, and destroy.

That distinction matters, especially for parents and leaders.

If you are a father, do not assume that providing food and shelter is enough. Your children need your presence, your attention, your encouragement, and your love. They need to know that they are more important than your career, your possessions, or your reputation.

They also need boundaries and accountability. Love without guidance can leave a child unprepared for life. But guidance without love can leave a child wounded and confused.

The goal is not to raise children who are simply obedient.

The goal is to raise people who know their value, accept responsibility, and understand their purpose.

Turning pain into purpose

People often ask, “How do I find my purpose in life?”

Sometimes purpose begins with the very places where you experienced pain.

That does not mean God caused every painful thing that happened to you. It does mean He can redeem what was meant to destroy you.

My childhood pain gave me an understanding of fear, rejection, hard work, and the need for a father’s love. Those experiences eventually became part of my message.

Today, as a faith-based life coach, speaker, husband, father, and grandfather, I understand that my story is not only about what happened to me. It is also about what I choose to do with what happened to me.

I can remain trapped in resentment.

Or I can allow God to turn pain into purpose.

I can pass my wounds to the next generation.

Or I can work to become a better father, husband, grandfather, and leader.

I can let my past explain me.

Or I can let God continue transforming me.

That is not a one-time decision. It is a daily process.

There are still things I am learning. There are still areas where I need to grow. I do not share this story as someone who has lived perfectly. I share it as a man who has experienced failure, consequences, grace, rebuilding, and second chances.

My heavenly Father never failed me.

He was present when I felt alone.

He gave me strength when I had very little.

He reminded me that my past was part of my story, but it did not have to determine my destination.

Your story may be different from mine. Maybe your prison is resentment. Maybe it is shame. Maybe it is the belief that you are too damaged, too old, too rejected, or too far gone to change.

But your worst chapter is not necessarily your final chapter.

You can build discipline.

You can heal your identity.

You can discover faith and purpose.

You can begin again.

And you can become the kind of father, mother, leader, spouse, or mentor you once needed.

So today, I invite you to reflect on your own story:

• What did your childhood teach you about love?
• What did it teach you about discipline?
• Are you repeating patterns that wounded you?
• What pain might God be asking you to surrender?
• Who are you becoming because of what you have survived?

And most importantly:

Ask Yourself: Am I Truly Free?

If this story connected with you, share your experience in the comments. Did a father figure shape your understanding of discipline, love, faith, or identity? Your story may be the encouragement someone else needs today.