I do know that regardless of my understanding, or lack there of, He is the PERFECT FATHER.
It seems to be a consistent theme, a steady stream of running water. My daddy issues, that is. Always lingering, consistently simmering just beneath the surface. This weekend, there was an explosion. And now, well now, I suppose it is some kind of a glorious mess.
I feel like the more I get to know girls my age, the more entangled our thread of stories become. My generation has been strengthened by matriarchs, yet ever so tainted with these all too familiar issues, simply a result of growing up without dads, with passive ones at the least.
As counter-cultural as I sound, I am convinced men and women were created differently. More so I am convinced men and women were created to serve differently--to carry out differing takes based on gender, on how we were created. Genesis makes it very clear we are made in the image of God. Thus, men and women are equal in the sense of dignity and value. However, they differ in their roles; men were created to be the head (1 Cor. 11:3, Eph. 5:23), women the helper (Gen. 2:18-20). In other words, they share equal worth, but different roles.
Genesis 2:18-23 continues to say that from the rib of man came woman.
Is there not a bit of irony in the fact that woman came from the rib of man, and that is still the very core of where we, as women, desire to be--protected, loved, held tightly, safe beneath the warm embrace of his arm. I know I do, anyways. Of course someday, I want to be protected by the embrace of my husband, but for the past twenty years of my life, I have so desperately longed to nestle into that cozy, safe place beneath the arms of my daddy.
My heart does leaps when an older, wiser, loving man reaches in for the tight embrace. At church. Around where I live. Heck, I would take a hug from the man at Walmart if he offered. There is something deep within me that longs to feel safe and loved by man.
Men were created to lead by protecting and providing for their families.
Women were created to help by affirming him and being the nurturer in the home.
So I do understand why I have this longing, what I don't understand is how to satisfy the aching of this longing being unmet by my earthly dad.
Today half of marriages end in divorce. Men are getting lost in their own passivity, forgetting what it means to be the leader of their home. Women are finding far more satisfaction in power, wealth and control then they are in giving up a salary, title, and control in order to nurture their children.
The roles have lost value. We have forgotten how we were created. We are believing a lie.
And then we sit and wonder, years down the road....how did things ever get to this point?
We forget, in the midst of this glorious mess, that everything we are doing, saying, feeling, and thinking is sending the same lies right down our tree. No longer a tree of life, but a tree of generations cursed by death! Do we not get it???
My dad has hurt me in ways that penetrate beneath my core, into the depths of who I am. Even this weekend, his words stung. His requests drained everything inside of me.
But by the grace of God in my life, my children are NOT going to know this pain. And by the grace of God alone, He is healing my wounds. He is making me new--whole really, like only He can do. He is ejecting the tape of lies constantly echoing through my mind, and replacing it with a new anthem, a new song--of His Truth, of His freedom, of His love. His perfect love that will never leave me or hurt me. His perfect love that is nothing like anything my dad knows how to give me.
So while the battle rages, while I bow down confessing the sin of my unforgiving heart once more, I hear whispers of the Truth all around.
He cannot give you what he does not have. You must give him grace, think of how often you screw up. Do not forget what you are capable of--what you have been saved from--who you are apart from Christ. You just humble yourself, Courtney, get back down on the floor and you cry out "Abba Father...draw my daddy back to you." You cannot change him--you cannot fix him--you cannot fill him. But you better be asking the One who can to do just that.
Okay Lord, okay.
For all of you fatherless women out there, hear this: His love is perfect and He is more then enough to fill up that hole, that longing, that desire. Nothing else will ever compare. Doing life without an earthly dad just sucks...like so many of the consequences of sin that we experience daily. But praise God that we are privileged to be chosen by Him, to be called out, to be elect that we might get to walk in the love of the PERFECT FATHER. What a gift, what a gift that I do not deserve, yet receive anyway.
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