to love with Christ's love

I spent this last weekend with my father. It was difficult to say the least. I'm not sure how to process it because it's so complicated. Maybe blogging and explaining some logic to my emotions may help? Maybe? Here goes.

My dad divorced my mother. I don't like him much for splitting up my family. I think that I also have a lot of issues now with trusting anyone of the male sex because my father is such a bad example.

Now this last weekend was all about him trying. Trying to mend. Trying to spend time with his daughter. A reluctant daughter. I wonder, then, where was he trying to spend time with me when I was a girl? If he worked the night shift so he could be home with my sister and I after school, then why did he spend all his afternoons watching TV? Why did he give me more hugs? Why did I hide myself (my inner self) from him because I was scared he'd be angry at what he found?

Why, now, after the divorce, did he suddenly decide he's not going to own a TV? Why does he think he can hug me now? Why, when I show him my true self, is it met with silence? It's like he's trying to make up for lost time, but it's - to use a cliche - too little, too late. He doesn't know me. Did he ever know me?

After this weekend, I just don't want to talk to him, I don't want to see him, I don't want a relationship. We had a conversation/arguement Friday evening about God and religion and spent the rest of the weekend making small talk with about 80% silence. Usually when I debate things, I'm able to understand someone else's side even though I may not completely agree with them. I couldn't find a balance or compromise with him because I felt that his opinions were based on bad logic and ignorance. How can I respect that? How can I respect someone who has cause so much hurt, not just for me, but for my mom and sister? I've decided that I just don't like him as a person. His personality is completely opposite of mine and we don't share anything in common. If he was a random person I met, I would never choose to be his friend.

My question is: how do I love him with the love of Christ and not spend time with him? How can you agape love someone you don't like? Especially when this person is a blood relation?

Spending a weekend with him made me miss my friends like crazy. Those special people who I'm able to be myself entirely, without judgment, with love. Some are in England, some are going to England, others are CPAing the world. My adventures will begin soon.

Oh God,
"Give us grace to endeavour after a truly Christian Spirit to seek to attain that temper of forbearance and patience which our blessed Saviour has set us the highest example; and which while it prepares us for the spiritual happiness of the life to come, will secure to us the best enjoyment of what this world can give!
Incline us, oh God! to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that Charity which we would desire from them ourselves."
Jane Austen