Real Restoration
“There’s baggage and hurt in all of our stories.”
— David McCormick, Fathers in the Field alumni and new missionary
THE GENERATIONAL GIFT
David McCormick first began his experience with Fathers in the Field later than most, at age seventeen. Like so many fatherless boys, his feelings of abandonment and deep father wounds were manifest not only in his broken home, but his broken life.
“I was in a teenage sexual relationship, doing drugs and drinking, and was addicted to pornography. I was seeking love and acceptance anywhere else because of the void of that earlier in life.”
“I’d decided that I don’t need anyone but myself and my drive. But my drive was powered by my rage and it led me down a path of frustration, depression, and confusion. I was just going with it and it was destroying me. Even my successes were wrongly motivated. I tried to play sports well for the affirmation of the coach. I worked out incessantly and created an image in order to get attention from girls. But ultimately, I was a threat to myself and everyone around me, my friends and my family, promoting bad behavior and taking others down with me.”
But the Lord and his single mother had a different idea for David.
“My mother saw the importance of having a Godly influence in my life and got me involved in Fathers in the Field through our church. Even though I was older, there was a part of me that recognized the need, despite being rebellious and fighting God.”
Paired with Mike, his Mentor Father, David began a three- year process of learning about his Heavenly Father, learning about himself, learning about what it means to be a man and a father, and learning about forgiveness. But healing took time.
“I didn’t have very high expectations, initially. I was rebellious, rude, and mean. I had a chip on my shoulder and wasn’t going to take anything from anyone. I was so angry and bitter and I didn’t take the counsel of Mike. It took a while to trust my mentor father because I felt un-helpable.”
Eventually, David’s anguish drove him to the hair trigger of suicide. “I just wanted the pain to stop.”
But through their commitment to each other and the process of Fathers in the Field, David and Mike stuck at it, together.
“Mike was there for me in good times and bad, and that’s why I came to trust him. It’s not an easy process, but in order to heal it is what God must do for your life.”
“When I was a kid, ‘father’ to me meant anger; it meant disappointment”
But I know what a real father is now and it’s because we have a Father God. As I get closer to Him, I’m learning what it means to be a father one day. Something Mike always told me was that it’s not the hand you are dealt, it’s how you play your hand that defines who you will become. If you seek God to fulfill you, you’ll come up with a flush. Through my experience with Mike, I’ve learned how to be a good dad, how to trust, have fellowship, how to communicate without judgment, and about unconditional love. Even now I’m realizing the full impact and importance of the blessing he put on my life.”
Even far down the adolescent path of self-destruction, there is hope for the fatherless.
With the patient commitment of his Mentor Father and the effective curriculum of Fathers in the Field, the solid mentorship of a Christian man, the love of the Heavenly Father, and the peace that comes through forgiveness – the terminal cycle of anger of this fatherless boy has been broken.
At the end of their three-year ministry journey together, at David’s request, Mike had the honor of baptizing him in the cool Colorado river that they first shed together.
“Now, as a committed believer, I’m changed. Today I’m a threat to Satan and the evil forces of this world that are trying to tear me and other people down. I’m responding to the call to be strong, be committed, and encouraging others in righteousness. I’m fighting the wickedness that’s going on around me and standing up for what I believe in. There are still times when I am afraid, but I can have faith and trust God. It’s a never-ending process.”
As a young adult, David is now part of a second generation of Fathers in the Field missionaries, paying forward the lessons of his new reality by becoming the first ministry alumni to join the cause and serve in kingdom work.
With the support of his mentor father, after successfully completing high school David received intensive missionary training abroad before being commissioned to serve the fatherless in South Africa, ministering to orphans, building orphanages, reaching out to the local community and sharing the love of Jesus to people in a foreign county. Soon he’ll be returning to the United States with experience and an expanded worldview that will surely equip him to continue passing along the lessons of self-worth and God’s grace that he learned through Fathers in the Field to other at-risk fatherless boys.
“It is an honor to share the truth about our Heavenly Father’s love and to serve others who are shattered from the devastation of broken families. Here I am, send me Lord.”
