The Love of the Father

You know those moments that are white hot flashes of core memory, so intense that when you have one, you know immediately the feeling will never leave you. You know you have gained fresh knowing from the moment, and although it might hurt like a knife, you know you would never regret it, ever, as long as you live. Because it hurts, but it hurts so good.

I sat there in the plane seat with my bottom lip firmly between my teeth, and my eyes full of tears. I didn’t even care that the passengers still loading were curiously glancing at me as they went by. I just sat there and allowed the pain to have its way. One doesn’t pick the moments when its grief you are talking about.

On the inside I was on my Fathers lap and I was repenting. “I should have asked you why,” I whispered in my heart.

I was taught by life, you don’t ask God why. You don’t scream and cry on his chest or question anything he does, because that is tempting God. I always had to be so careful I didn’t ‘tempt’ God to punish me severely for being a normal human being. It was crippling. I was serving a God who was not strong enough to handle questions and who might snap at any moment. I was serving a God who was easily angered, easily irritated, and above all took pleasure in punishment.

When loss came into my life, I simply said “if it is your will, it’s the best way.” and slowly numbness crept over me until I didn’t feel much of anything.

That is: until I did, and then I felt everything and nerves too long numbed responded in an explosion of pain so severe, I wanted to die. I cried for days. Rivers of tears. I cried while picking out cilantro, and while loading my groceries in the car. I cried in the shower and while I made breakfast. I cried and cried until the tears were all cried out and then I stopped and the sun came back into my life, and I went back to my pragmatic life that rarely involves tears, unless they are tears of commiseration.

Several years later, and having a better grasp of the Fathers love, I found myself sitting again at his feet, refusing to feel or to ask why. Was I too proud to ask why? Surely I knew by now that he saw my entire heart in all honesty with nothing hidden. Why was I hiding in the trees again?

Why was the shame of humanity forcing me away from the safest place I could be?

And that is where I whispered to God, “please let me know why it is best for my health to once again have such a setback. Another pregnancy lost, several days missed in a haze of cramps, and heavy bleeding, the ensuing anemia and my heart once again full of uncertainty.

When I got home I snuggled my little boy who is barely a baby anymore. I texted a friend, “I can’t believe he survived my murderous womb.” She had no words for me, just a crying emoji. it was all I needed. I knew she understood.

Right there on the plane, I got up on Gods lap and shouted “WHY, is this the best for me?”

There was no answer, but I knew he had heard me and I was flooded with peace. This was nothing new to him. He had already seen the why in my heart. It wasn’t even hiding. It was sitting right there, front and center, waiting to be walked down the aisle.

Right there on the plane I knew he had heard me, and the next step was already in motion. The next good thing for me. And for some reason being utterly crushed was good.

It’s an incredibly clever ruse of the enemy to have us walking our path with one foot on the sharp gravel beside the smooth path. It must have been difficult to come up with a plan such as this because Love found us, Love drew us to him, and finally it was pure unadulterated Love that saved us. It’s indisputable. We cannot find God on our own. We don’t have that much goodness inside us. He has to draw us.

But it’s what comes after, that is chilling. We believe it because it is so believable. “You won’t be acceptable to God unless you obey him.”

Seems reasonable.

It matches how relationships work. If we aren’t perfect, we aren’t loved. Make a mistake and you are out. Fellowship is broken, and consequences have to be paid.

But we are talking peer to peer with relationships. What about if it is a relationship between child and Father.

Ahh, now we are talking. My Dad didn’t stop loving me when I neglected my calf feeding duties and one died. It would have felt better if he had yelled at me and punished me. But he didn’t. I knew what I had done and it hurt me terribly that I had let him down. He didn’t stop loving me when I had a wreck and cost him a lot of money. Money he could have asked me to pay. But he didn’t. And all through my growing up years I saw glimpses of the Fathers love.

Somehow it kept being drowned out, though. And by the time I was married and had children, I was living a fully performing life to a God who could never be entirely pleased. My children were irritating to me, and their problems were small and silly. I didn’t want to deal with them, as if it lowers me to do so. I was burned out constantly and because of that just wanted the problem to go away.

(Did you know that is what burn out does? It makes the person try to just get the problem to go away, no matter who they have to mow over in doing so. This often happens in church with ministry. Already overtaxed ministry teams fall into their humanity and desperately bully people to get them to fall in line so they are not inconvenienced.)

Eventually God got to me when I screamed at my children and thought someone was at the door and heard me. I was horrified that I cared more what someone else thought rather than how I was damaging my children. That was the beginning of a great change for me in my house.

For months. all I focused on was my tone with the children. The calmer I answered, the quicker the problems would dissipate. Eventually the problems became less and less and my house became truly peaceful. Of course my children and I are very normal, and we have our dramatic moments, but they are just that, a mere moment. A blip in time quickly followed by a sincere apology both from me and from them.

I had several more children and started realizing how incredible my job as a mother really is. I am given to my children to be their trainer, their teacher, the supporter, their confidant, their hugs and kisses and the heartbeat of my home.

Finally, I understood the great assignment that was mine. it was my job to make the house my husband gave me, into a home. To carefully raise our children in such a way that they were not micromanaged or controlled, but that I was laying the baseline for them to recognize love.

Love is at the heart of the Christian experience. Our theology and religion crumbles without the foundation of love.

Without love it becomes another empty, demanding religion that leaves all the doing up to you, and gives nothing back except the hope a placebo gives.

Listen peasants, when life kicks you right in the gut, the last thing you need is a placebo. You need a Father that meets you right where you are, holds his hand out and says “I am with you, let’s do this thing.”

Thats all folks.

Words are slow to come these days, and my hands have been busy in my house, canning food for the winter, raising my babies, and loving those in my realm of influence.

Let me leave you with this question.

Do you know the heart of the Father? The one I am describing?

Do you know his love from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet?

Or do you serve a God that is waiting for you to do wrong, so he can slap you with a punishment?

If so, you have not found the Father, King of the universe, big G, God. Search for him with all your heart. You will find him.

I know this for a fact. And now is a good time to go look for him because he is everywhere. Open your eyes and look at the leaves. In their dying they are pouring out colors that are so intoxicating, our hearts swell and swell until tears leak out from the pressure of his incredible greatness.

The ocean is another place where his presence is so loud, it is a cacaphony on the senses. The ocean washes in, and out. It cannot be controlled. The waves rise, they lower, and we can fight it, but we will not win.

He is inside me, my heart of stone changed into a heart of flesh.

A heart of stone shatters, a heart of flesh stretches.

I embrace Love. The natural order of my creator.

I will give in to the waves and rock with them until my faith is made sight.

Join me.