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Eletter for Week of January 29, 2004
My Dear Friends, For if my people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land (II Chronicles 7:14). I have just returned from an amazing trip to Colorado Springs where my dear brother Max Paul allowed God to use him to videotape the most powerful footage of a broken daughter and a helpless father that I have ever seen. My daughter Jade and I were the feature of a pilot for what I am praying will be a television series titled Coming Clean—a real life, no holds barred, stories of children and parents struggling to find answers in a desperate world. The pilot, “A Letter to Daddy,” is the story of one child’s hard lived life at the tender age of 16, her father's suffering as he sees his child die a slow death, and his inability to spare her from a pain he wished not on his worst enemy. It is the story of a daughter taking an amazingly courageous step to tell her daddy that she was not the picture-perfect child he wished her to be, yet she was the child that was dying and reaching out for her daddy’s hand; “Hey Dad, you want to know why I went to your youth rallies? Not because I wanted to see you help other kids, but because I wanted you to help me.” My daughter was dying, yet I did not see it as I was reaching out to help other parents’ children. This is a story of hope, redemption, reconciliation and healing. It was only when my daughter came clean with me that the process of liberation began to take place in our family. There are many benefits to the process of coming clean. One of the most significant is that of providing a ‘safe place’ for our children to be able to come clean with us. But how does all this occur? What propels a child or parent to begin the process of coming clean? What is coming clean, and is there any magical, standard formula? The process of Coming Clean is not a quantum leap that makes everything ok. At Coming Clean Ministries we define coming clean as a process of liberation by which we are delivered, restored and healed as we become transparent before Christ, family and those we hurt. I am sure that coming clean to me was very different than what it meant to my daughter Jade when she came clean with me. As we look at our lives we need to come to grips with exactly what Coming Clean means to each and every one of us. However, we define this process, or act, I suggest that without the elements of contrition and transparency coming clean becomes simply another exercise we engage without any significant consequence. Ask God to give you the wisdom today to help you define what coming clean means for you and your family. And when HE does, I pray that you do not wait until it is too late to hear “A Letter to Daddy.” You see my friend; I had the honor to have my daughter read this letter to me while she is still alive. Over 30,000 parents this year will not be as fortunate. Pray that God will open the doors to present the Coming Clean television series not only on Christian TV, but, also, on secular television.
God bless you always,
Jorge Valdes, Ph.D.
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