I know exactly who I want to be but don’t know anything about what I want to do. I do not know what job I want but at least I do know that I want to do something that will be exciting and will further the kingdom of God. For a few years now I have decided to be some kind of missionary, which will give me both. So I thought what better way to experience and practice it then going on a real, out of the country, mission trip. But to ruin my plans and dreams my evil, menacing father will not let me leave the country! This is very frustrating and I am sure he just wants to stop me from doing what I want to do most in this world. My situation seems like a fairytale where the six foot, six inch scary ogre is keeping the beautiful princess from following her dreams.  But, with some empathy I might be able to see the story somewhat differently.

We need to get something straight here; my dad is crazy protective. It took three years to convince my father to let me go on a mission trip in Colorado.  So don’t ask me why I thought it possible. But I thought I could convince him to let me go to Portugal with Go-Students when my friend said she was getting to go. This trip is focused on kids that are not as blessed as we are in America. I adore kids and have a huge heart to help them. So my silly self tried the very best I could to get permission to go using every manipulation a cute 14 year old knows. This is about the first time that absolutely nothing worked. My father’s answer was always a “No,” and “this is for your own good.” I don’t see how keeping me from my dreams is helping me.

This ongoing argument started around the time school started. My friend had gotten back from her mission trip to Africa making me really want to go too after I heard her story and saw her pictures. I have begged my dad to let me go to Portugal next year because this is my dream. He has always told me to follow my dreams and now my hypocritical father is standing in the way.  Also this is not like a selfish, bad goal that he should protect me from. If I have a dream like that then by all means get in my way, but my dream is to share this joy from my Savior with people who do not have it. How can my loving, sensitive father get in my way over this?

When I think about it unbiasedly I can find some sound reasons why my dad is taking a firm position on this matter. He still sees me as the teeny little baby girl he brought home from the hospital wrapped in a big, pink blanket. To my father I am still the adorable three year old falling asleep on his chest or the cute six year old dancing with him in my princess costume. He does not think I am old enough to handle myself in the huge, scary world and maybe he is right. My dad is a smart man and knows the terrible things happening all over the world. He knows someone may want to steal an unobservant teenage girl. My dad watches the news so he knows that the world is not safe so sending me out into it is definitely not safe, especially for someone with my care-free, trusting personality. His reasons are not as selfish and cruel as I think when I try to understand him.

Without empathy we view situations extremely selfishly like in this disagreement but when we open our eyes to the other person's point of view, we see things as they really are. When I looked at our disagreement through my dad’s eyes I realized he was not trying to hurt me or mess up my plans. He was doing the opposite, trying to protect me. He went from an evil menacing ogre to a protective knight in shining armor. If we would just use empathy in every aspect of our life we could see the other person's motives and understand them. Understanding is a great gift we can use to prevent fights and struggles if we just use empathy to unlock it.