We imprint upon our parents from day one, perhaps even while we’re still in the womb. Our first awareness at birth is that “mother” is the source of all our needs, and before long, we become aware of “father” in the room(often the obstacle we have to overcome to get back to “mother”), and then siblings and grandparents and so on. As we’ll discover in the section on personality, we develop tactics from a very early age to have our needs met based on the feelings of basic loss we experience at birth. Our parents shape our understanding of “self” like few others will. In our family of origin (biological or otherwise) we receive messages of acceptance and belonging, but also messages of neglect, abandonment, and sometimes abuse. These messages create a trajectory for our lives in that they set up our expectations for all other relationships, including the one we have with God. This is why God as “father” is a welcome image for some, and a point of pain for others. April Ban is a long-time friend of mine residing in Nashville, Tennessee. She lives in the space between being a pastor at the Anchor Fellowship and as a licensed clinical therapist. For April, Family of Origin theory permeates everything, whether it’s how we relate to God or how we see ourselves. In this conversation we delve into family systems theory, how it works, and what it means to bring our histories into the healing presence of Jesus.