For the last 25 years, my father has been forced to work abroad in order to support our family, so my mother raised me alone. All my life I have searched for the missing love of my father. He wasn't near me when I needed him. This wounded my heart, but the Lord is healing these wounds little by little.

Two incidents stand out in my mind. One happened when I was about five years old. My father came home for three weeks of vacation in the summer. I hadn't seen him in two years. He called me to come to him, and I looked at my mother and said, "Who is this?" I didn't even recognize my father!

The other incident happened when I was in fifth grade. It was the end of the school year, and it was the custom that all of the fathers of the pupils would go to the school. The teacher would call the student forward together with his or her father in order to give the final report card of the year. In our culture, mothers were not allowed to come to the school as it would be a scandal for the whole family. I was the only one in my class of 38 students who was without his father that day. Imagine the shame I felt when the teacher called my name and I had to go forward alone.

Finally, when I was 16 years old, my mother and I were able to join my father in Germany where he had obtained legal residence. We soon discovered that, as his son, I would have been given the same right had I arrived in Germany only six months earlier! But now it was too late. I tried in every way possible to be able to stay with my family, but after seven years, I had finally exhausted every legal avenue. I was forcibly repatriated to my home country in eastern Europe.

During the war, our house in the village had been burned. Now suddenly I found myself alone and homeless, returning to a country that after seven years in Germany seemed very strange to me. I was in the airport in Manheim waiting for my flight, not knowing what I was going to do when I reached my village, when my mother phoned to say that she had contacted some of her relatives in another village. They had agreed for me to stay with them till I found another solution. These relatives had also had their house burned during the war, and were living in what had been the cow barn.

One of the members of this family, a distant cousin a couple of years younger than me, had recently become a follower of Jesus. At first he was very cautious about sharing his new faith with me because he wasn't sure how I respond. But seeing how depressed I was, he knew that I needed something to take my mind off my situation, so he invited me to visit the Christian fellowship group. I always believed that there was a God, but I thought that God loved only people who do good things. Since everything in my life had gone so wrong, I was sure that I could not be one of the people God loved.

Anyway, I was very sad and had nothing better to do, so I agreed to go with him to the meeting. Once I got there, I saw a love like I had never known before. Even though I was meeting these people for the first time, they treated me as though they already knew me. I'll never forget one of the songs they sang that day: "God is my shepherd; I will lack nothing. He leads me in green pastures..." These people knew God in a way that I never dreamed possible. I soon discovered that I too could know God as my Father.

Everything has changed since I have accepted Jesus in my life. He has begun to heal my heart. Every morning he shows his fatherly love, giving me the warmth which I always needed. And only Jesus can do this because he has promised us that He will never leave us nor forsake us. This is what gives me hope for my life.