Who’s Your Daddy?

I love writing prompts. They make me think. Well, I mean they make me think about things deeper than, “Why is cellulite cute on a baby and not on me?” Today Suzie Eller (over at #livefree) shared this prompt- “junk we carry around”.  My right cerebral hemisphere pondered the phrase while it simultaneously pondered “why do mushy bananas make me gag?”(Sounds random but at the time I was prepping four of the nasty buggers for banana bread. Gah.)

The Rolodex in my cranium began to flip. Much to my delight it paused at the memory of a parking lot conversation with a dear friend. I can’t believe the exchange took place over ten years ago.

My girlfriend and I had engaged in a far too rare activity. We went out for dinner! Eventually we depleted the restaurant food supply…our words? Not so much.

Conversation lingered as we approached our cars. We weren’t in any hurry to part. And then she said something about her past that caught my attention. I questioned her. My inquiry was permeated with marvel.

“How do you do that?”

“What?” she replied.

“How do you talk about the past like it never happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve had really hard things happen in your life and yet today when I hear you talk I’d never know all those difficulties took place.”

She looked me straight in the eye and with quiet confidence spoke something into my heart I’ve never forgotten:

“My life in Christ gave me a brand new start. I truly believe He makes all things new. My old life doesn’t even seem like my life. It’s hard to explain but that’s how far apart my present life is from my past.”

Truth changes lives.

My friend was a living example. She could have carried around her “junk”. She would have been entitled. But she didn’t and it showed. Not only did her choice manifest itself in her life but in her children’s lives as well.

She grabbed hold of this truth:

“…if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

Unlike my friend I’m what’d you could call a slow learner. She was the conduit for a parking lot epiphany but I didn’t immediately latch on to it. Flash forward four years and I’m knee deep in grief over the loss of my father. The problem was that the perceived problem wasn’t the problem at all.

Of course I wept over his death. Naturally, I grieved over his illness and premature passing but my real problem was the loss of a dream. I no longer had hope that the relationship I’d always longed for would materialize.

He. Was. Gone.

I stared out of my kitchen window for six months asking God, “Why?” Why on earth would He rob me of such hope? I’d bemoan this. I’d bemoan that. I’d wish this. I’d regret that.

Then, one day the Holy Spirit decided He’d had enough. He spoke to me with tender but tenacious indignation.

“Cindy, how long are you going to be bound by everything you never had with your Father? Did it ever occur to you that every single thing you lacked in your relationship with him provided you with the mind-bending imaginations of everything your heavenly Father is? If you had received all you ever wanted from an earthly Dad isn’t it possible you would have limited what you seek in God?”

I must have really gotten on His nerves because at this point He was just getting warmed up.

“Close your eyes and imagine what a perfect Father would be like! You have that and MORE! You. Are. Blessed! Your vision of God as your Father needn’t be hindered by your experiences on an earthly plane. You said you had dreams of what it would look like? Darlin’ God wants you to dream! But He wants you to know that your dream takes tangible form in the reality of the most

loving,

attentive,

available,

supportive,

faithful

Father that there is.

His name is I AM and He. Is. Here!”

I’d been carrying around my “junk” regarding all I’d hoped for in a father for thirty odd years but that day…that was the day God threw my junk in the dump where it belonged. That was the day my Daddy said, “You are mine and I am yours.”

That was the day I knew my Daddy.

My tiny kitchen table is long gone but the work God did in my heart was permanent. He forever changed how I felt about myself. He also rewrote how I felt about my earthly father and every other aspect of life that intertwined around that tender topic.

I’ll close with a few verses but when you have a moment, check out Priscilla Shirer’s video below. It takes three minutes but it is a powerful reminder of just who our Daddy is!

“And so we should not be like cringing, fearful slaves, but we should behave like God’s very own children, adopted into the bosom of his family, and calling to him, “Father, Father.” For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we really are God’s children.” Romans 8:15-16 TLB

“See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for he allows us to be called his children—think of it—and we really are!” 1 John 3:1

Your (Daddy’s Girl) DoAhead Woman,