On Level Ground & My Dad

I saw him this Christmas and it never became this big deal. It's been a couple years since we've stepped into a room together and I am not the same. He's been sober for awhile now and for that I do rejoice (after I question that this could really be true, of course).

A few people have asked lately, so I started to think about it.

I don't really think about him much anymore, my dad that is. Sometimes I will wonder about all the could haves and would haves long lost. I catch myself dreaming up the past all pretty and perfect. I stop myself  because it's a silly waste of a future, I think. And more often I dream of my wedding day, but it is never him there beside me.

And it's okay. 

God has made Himself known to me. We're walking this thing out and my eyes don't see Him so skewed any more. He has offered up a handful of faithful fatherly figures who take great intention with my life, and I know the love more today then I ever have. And I need it less. What grace, ya'll. What unfathomable grace. 

It's okay to be free, right? To not doubt or fear or condemn?

Because over these years, I pictured this dramatic slow-mo scene of me running into his arms. I think there were daisies too. And green grass. And the sun, the blue sky of course. But in reality, it was frigid and dark outside as I wondered up the sidewalk with an armload of presents. It was Christmas Eve and the whole fam was gathered. I didn't see him at first. And he didn't rush right in for an embrace.

I got situated and then made the rounds. I hugged him and he trailed behind much of the night, asking for glimpses into what has been my life and where it is headed. It got a bit frustrating at one point, so I plopped down between sisters on the couch and soaked it all up.

Here we are celebrating this God birthed into flesh and knowing Him more greatly then the father of my own flesh had indeed set me free. Glory to God alone, for He really has molded my heart to love and trust Him most. And in the process, He's put pieces once shattered back together. He has redeemed.  He still is!

This has just been a season of level ground concerning these daddy issues and I don't quite know what to do with it. The past decade or so has certainly been a roller coaster of mountains so high and valleys so deep. Straight and narrow suddenly doesn't seem nearly as enticing. 

Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path.

That's been a life verse that's finally taking on flesh and I'm praying for joy to follow. He promises it will in Him. 

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. 

We wrestle in these completely unbearable (apart from that little detail of grace) and unfair circumstances, and we claim He is fighting and our faith becomes our eyes and its the hardest thing ever but we put one foot in front of the other and claim the victory. Some days thats enough. Others we wallow and wait and beg Jesus to show Himself and whisk us away already. These last years have brought majority of the latter.

Today, I am thankful for a Lord who redeems and repairs and makes me new--and for level ground.

And a brief side note---I am so incredibly thankful for and blessed by my brothers (and bro-in-law) who have sought after, confronted, directed, cared for and loved the heck outa our dad through these past several years. What a sweet blessing from the Lord that He would position these men to intercede for me and bear the brunt of the burden of our dad for me (and my sister) as I just needed time and space--and Jesus.

And by His grace, they actually showed me all three.

In Him alone is great joy found.

On That One Time I Asked for a Dad {Learning Trust}

Please read part one over here first...

Fast forward a week and it is late at night. We are in a meeting room at the apartments, all four of us. Coffee in hands, sweat dripping down my back I move uncomfortably in my seat. My leg bobbles—faster—as the moments of silence settle in, uncomfortably so. I look up and smile awkwardly, trying to assure them I am not this crazy person, trying to assure myself mostly.

So, just tell us a little bit about yourself, Courtney. He voices.

Well, I stutter. How do I say the right words? How in depth do I go? What if they hear my brokenness and decide I'm too messy, too much to be redeemed through such a relationship. I just begin to talk. A little bit about my past leading me here. A lot about the here and now, this desire for a dad. He is quiet but attentive. She is constantly giving me reassuring nods. I get through it and it can only get easier from here.

We agree this is a God thing and we all want to walk on this journey together, totally unsure of what it looks like. So he talks logistics and bible and she covers me in affirmation and we pray. We decide I will just get to know them in life on life time—going out to the house and hanging out with their family of eleven. Yes, nine kiddos.

So I go. The very next week. And the next and the next. I trust that the Lord knows better then I do.

Truthfully, I can't remember much about the first time, except that I came home and wrote about it. One day, I will share because it makes me laugh and cry all in one breath.

Time with their family was easy—a little too easy. They welcomed me as a guest only a couple times, before I found myself covered in soapy water in front of the sink rinsing a dozen plates and belly laughing with the girls. Not a guest anymore, just a part of life. They became the same for me—until one day it started feeling like home. Not the house perse or the windy road up the mountain—just them, being with them, learning and laughing and crying sometimes.

It was nothing like I expected but everything that I needed—and of course the Lord just did that.

We had some intentional time that fall, some hard conversations. I had to hear hard Truth and decide if I was willing to submit or not. It's funny looking back, it really wasn't all that grand in the scheme of life. Things like what to do if my car breaks, how to love my roommates well, what it looks like to be a young single woman, how to pay off debt, types of boundaries to put in place with my parents back home and so on. Praise Jesus He is patient and does things little by little because He knows us so well.

After a Christmas with them, they were family and I was beginning to trust. 

Then life happened and I slipped from offense and fell pretty hard. Mainly, the consequences of decisions that hadn't been mine which led me to choosing sin over Christ to cope with it all, because that's what I knew. There were consequences, all the same. They stepped in, this dad and his wife and they told me I wasn't going to stay in this place, the battle wasn't over and something had to give. I kicked and screamed and wrestled them on it too. Patient and gracious, he told me it would take the flip of a calendar and accountability and Jesus.

That's when they told me to come live with them.

The months to follow God began asking me to trust more and continue submitting to the process. He began challenging me to trust them with more of my heart and my life, to ultimately trust Him through them, this authority that He placed in my life for this season of time. What a scary thought, I remember thinking. Looking back, we really didn't know much of how this all works and still are no experts, but He was the author of it from day one.

Then the submission became harder. To trust him in things that were so deeply woven into me, to trust him (them) with it all. My relationship with my biological dad. My financial independence from my mom. My education and goals. My debt and my time. Even just beginning to learn my role as a woman, the way that changes everything I had planned. 

As I trusted and submitted, I experienced so much peace and blessing. Dont get me wrong, it was and continues to be one of the most challenging battles—giving up control. Trusting that the Lord really does know better then I do—that His plans are perfect. Even His plan to provide this earthly dad to intercede on my behalf for this season of time, to bear some of the weight, this earthly imperfect man that God has called me to trust and submit to. Not because anyone told me I had to but because even the SON OF GOD submitted to His earthly parents for a season, knowing all the while He had the Perfect Father.

"And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man."   -Luke 2:51-52

And yet, no longer having to bear up under the weight of it all, of always trying to figure it out and hold together the pieces shattered from life in a fallen world, from not growing up with a dad who protected me, from seeing too much and rebelling against all authority for so many years, that is a blessing.

The good news—He restores. Yes, even through a dad and mom and family that have only become mine because God spoke and it was so. Because He burdened their heart for the mess I am, and me for a need not being met apart from them.

I don't claim to be an expert and neither do they. We are in a process of learning how to do this well, how to trust and talk real and how to redeem this biblical principle in a completely fallen and messed up world.

It's so not perfect and neither are we, but God is being glorified and I am safe here.

"My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof,  for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights."   -Prov. 3:11-12

I am just a girl learning to submit in a generation that says run. Just a girl without a [God-fearing] dad learning to let one in. Just a girl with some hurt and a whole lotta pride learning to heal and be humbled. Just a girl who asked for a dad and got a whole childhood redeemed through this family of whom I make a dozen. Just a girl who desires to run a home some day and raise babies and submit to a husband. A girl just learning to inhale hope and exhale brokenness because we all have to breathe.

Just a girl learning to write gospel and breathe in the future promised because hope lives here alone.

And if this is you, there is hope for you too. To see God's redemption in a tangible way—to know Him as the perfect Father. For you, maybe this means seeking out some type of "fatherly authority" in your life as well. Perhaps it is just spending time around families living it out. Maybe it is God redeeming relationship with your own dad. Maybe it is a friend you want to support.

Whatever it is, I pray sister, that you might know this:  And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ; He redeems and makes new and it is good, but it's never going to complete until we see Jesus. Let's rejoice in this hope when all will be perfected!! 

On That One Time I Asked for a Dad {The Beginning}

A year.

That's how long I have been walking in this I really need a dad journey.

I know I am not alone and sometimes, I get the weird looks and secret phone calls revealed among concerned family members. And no, I am not in a cult. I figured it is time to share about my journey this year and I hope in doing so, we all find some hope in the perfect Father working through our earthly or adopted ones.

I was curious, what this fatherlessness issue is doing to this generation. I was shocked by what I found. Here are just a few stats that I want you to take in. I heard on the radio last night 60% of kids today are growing up without dads. That's more then half.

> 63% of teen suicides come from fatherless homes. That’s 5 times the national average.   {SOURCE: U.S. Dept of Health}

> 90% of all runaways and homeless children are from fatherless homes. That’s 32 times the national average.

> 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes. 14 times the national average.  {Justice and Behavior}

> 85% of children with behavioral problems come from fatherless homes. 20 times the national average.  {Center for Disease Control}

> 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. 9 times the national average.  {National Principals Association Report}

> 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes. 10 times the national average.   {Rainbow’s for all God’s Children}

> 85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes. 20 times the national average.   {U.S. Dept. of Justice}

6 out of 10. I cannot hear that, read these stats and remain quiet and content to deal with my daddy issues in silence. I don't know what it all looks like yet, I just know we are called to defend the weak and fatherless. {Ps. 82:3}

Let me preface this with—God is sovereign and perfect and completely in control. Thus, fatherless women who love the Lord can make it without a dad who knows Him—yet I see nothing but protection and safety and redemption in the story He has written in my life this year. Enough that I pray it offers hope to a fatherless generation.

Last fall, after watching my former roomie go through courtship and then marriage, the holy spirit flooded the depths of me with this desire for dad, this conviction that this whole thing isn't going to work how it should without such a need being met in my life first. Proof of how the south is meshing into my previously liberal perspective on relationships and quieting much of that. Yet, it is sweet and right. I actually don't believe in dating anymore {but that is another post entirely}. That said, the whole picture of dad and brothers on the porch with a rifle as this suitor approaches to ask dad's permission to get to know me—that makes sense to me. Until I began to realize that when you take out the dad—that picture can never be painted just right. Thus, began my journey.

60% of kids today are growing up without dads and I am not alone.

You know, we all are birthed with that daddy hole, the one only His love can fill. And when our earthly daddys fail to do so and we don't know our Heavenly One—well, this is the testimony of so many of us who have waded into the depths of darkness, searching for love in all the wrong places, only a matter of time before we can no longer hold the broken pieces together anymore. But then, then for those He has called comes the little glimpse—a light, a hope, a future, daddy love.

Yet by this point, we just can't receive it freely, because we don't understand that. 

Nothing is free—especially the love of a dad. Especially when men have hurt us, when our dads have fallen short time and time again. When the only dad we have ever known got swallowed up into his bottle of VO or walked out and never came back or worked his way up in the job world as we took our first steps and just forgot to look back—we all know the same pain, the same hunger.

We become comfortable with the hole that festers in depth with each passing year.

All I can do is laugh thinking back to the early days of this whole deal. I remember thinking—what in the world, God? Do I just stand outside Walmart and start asking any man over 50 wearing a cross if he can be my dad? It's not like I could go up to someone I know—they would look at me and run. I mean, I wouldn't blame them.

So, what do I do? Well I process...and talk to sisters I trust...and pray...and doubt...and talk some more. Then I begin to hear His voice through the words that begin to echo again and again. He is patient and I am thankful.

All I heard real clear was this—find 'a man of peace' in this body and tell him you are looking for a dad. After being in a discipleship program for two years at this point, it made sense that the director of the program might have some ideas of who could meet such a need in my life—and he just so happened to also be a member of this new body I had recently joined. I told a friend who told a closer friend who talked to him on my behalf. Okay, I couldn't do it myself—perhaps I am a chicken, but mostly I just felt straight-up crazy.

After the initial plea on my behalf came a month of silence. I took that as confirmation that I was indeed mentally lacking somewhere. At least I didn't know him, I thought to myself. Good thing I only see him from a distance. I don't have to fear facing him, didn't have to fear the look which probably crossed his face when the friend of a friend pleaded my case.

Then she calls, out of the clear blue as the idea had nearly lost all meaning in my life. She tells me they want to meet me. They want to talk about it. They want to know me. Who? I ask, caught off guard. K and M, you know the man of peace and his wife. Can you come? Yes, okay, I'll be there.

Part 2 to be continued...

On Taking a Deep Breath

Its been a few weeks, a few weeks since I have heard anything. A few weeks since I've really thought about him.

I am thankful for the way they protect me, the way the burden is just gone. While trust is still a process and submission a war waging within me, I never knew how light these daddy issues could be when I actually broke down let them fight for me, my adapted dad and my big bro, when I stopped trying to prove something. When I stopped trying to save the world—and my dad.

While I've been working and studying and doing life with my dozen and welcoming my international friends back for another year, he has been detoxing and sobering up. While they counsel him, yanking up his war-torn memories and question his attempt to bring the 80s back to life, they counsel me to fast from him and let Jesus be Jesus. He remembers his days of having it all, his days of good looks, his days of being called boss. He probably remembers the alcohol weaving through those years too, the millionaire gone broke in a single choice gone bad, the abuse and neglect, the relationships burned to ashes—the story of his life would bring in millions at the box office.

We are all drawn to the brokenness, I think. We feel better, more comfortable in our own mess when we know that someone else has it worse? And there is always someone. I glimpsed a show last night, Intervention, an episode of a man who is addicted to getting high by holding his breath long enough to pass out. His family was desperate to save him, to keep him a while longer. I sort of laughed because what else can you do? We are just so broken and we cover it up, but sin always takes us farther and I know it too well. 

While my battle has been with food, his continues with alcohol and I remember we're not so different, but oh sweet Jesus we are and I praise you for that! 

He is getting out today. We have been here, here in this place too many times to hope. I don't trust because nothing but fibers in my blood tie me to him now. But it's okay because we are all a lot of work and a little progress, crying out for the image that was before the woman and the tree screwed it all up. 

But one day, one day soon we will see heaven and it won't matter. 

This time, he is walking out the door with a diagnosis. I don't really know what it is but I know he can't function on his own anymore. He can't have money and he can't take his grandkids out for an ice cream afterschool. Life is different and messed up so I know faith is the thread that holds me even tighter. 

My god-send of a brother, this man with deeper hurt then I will ever know, this one who loves his wife and raises his son so good, this one who fights for me and wears the gospel on his sleeve, this one with grace unfathomed and mercy so raw—he is getting dad and driving him hours to live in this house with others like him for a year. Others so broken and hurting and lost. We've all been there—I am there. We all have our out, we all stop breathing sometimes.

Yet, he has sustained me thus far and for that in itself, I call Him good. 

So, here we are in this world where men get high by holding their breath and dads hurt their little girls and we don't know how to make it all right, to justify the brokenness so we paint a mask and we cover up with leaves because it feels more right and we laugh because we remember that heaven is coming and it's just not getting better until then.

So we take a deep breath and we tighten the thread and we press onward, heaven bound. 

On Some Road To Trust

A Mind & Heart At War—A Road To Trust

My mind says get out the door before he sees you.

My heart says you need his encouragement this morning.  

My mind says disappear to your room before the goodnights and I love yous begin.

My heart says you need the protection of a goodnight hug.

My mind says stop looking him in the eyes so he will ignore you.

My heart says fix your eyes on his love for you. 

My mind says you are crazy for trusting him.

My heart says you would be foolish not to.

My mind says he is not worthy of trust—he is gunna fail you.

My heart says he understands grace better then you do.

My mind says he will hurt you—they always hurt you.

My heart says he is your protector—he is not them.

My mind says your mess is beyond his capacity.

My heart says Christ in him is sufficient still.

My mind says you are going to fail him.

My heart says praise the Lord he is forgiving.

My mind says flee from this room.

My heart says you dwell in safety here always.

My mind says pull away.

My heart says he will come after you.

My mind says you are not really his.

My heart says you have been adopted.

My mind says he looks at you and sees the extent of your failure.

My heart says his eyes see you new.

My mind says he is not really your dad.

My heart says just call him daddy.


Daughter,
You need My encouragement. {1 Peter 5:10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.}

You need My protection. {I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makes me dwell in safety. -Psalm 4:8}

Fix your eyes on My love for you.  {The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. -Zeph. 3:17}

You would be foolish not to. {For the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off; -Psalm 37:28}

I understand grace better then you do. {Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.-Hebrews 4:16}

I am your protector.  {The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, My heart will not fear; Though war arise against me, In spite of this I shall be confident. -Psalm 27:1-3}

Christ is sufficient for you. {His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,-2 Peter 1:3}

I forgive you. {In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace. -Eph. 1:7}

You dwell in safety with Me always. {Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. -Isaiah 41:10}

I will come after you. {No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. -John 6:44}

You have been adopted by Me. {For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” -Romans 8:15}

My eyes see you as new. {Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! −2 Cor. 5:17}

Just call me Daddy. {A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. -Psalm 68:5} 

Love,

God

On Doubting and Choosing

When I awaken in the night to horrific scenes that seem more real then the real thing, when I find myself in the corner of the darkness hiding, when I can’t breathe because the pain is so overwhelming—yes, pain from something that wasn’t even real. But it was.

When I wake up, this man I want so desperately to trust, he tells me my life will be better without the one of whom I just dreamed. The one who seems to be found at the climax of the deepest hurts in my life. He tells me that he doesn’t want me to talk to him anymore—period. Yes, the very one whose genes I bear.

Okay, for how long? My doubts begin to flare up.

A year…maybe forever. It doesn’t matter really. You just don’t talk to him indefinitely for now.

What about Thanksgiving? I murmur softly. Does that mean I can’t see my siblings? Does that mean I can’t go to family events? What will I do at Christmas?

I am drowning in doubt now.

Don’t worry about it—we will deal with those situations as they come up. He always gives us a way out. Right now, all you need to focus on is health and Truth. You don’t need his voice in your head. I want to step in and protect you here. It’s up to you if you let me.   

Long Pause.

What are you thinking about over there?

Hesitation. Doubt.

Okay, I will do whatever you think is best.

But I want him to know that I am not silent because I am bitter or unforgiving. He needs to know I love him, despite all of it, I still love him. He needs to know he is loved, loved by Jesus most of all, forgiven, clean, made new.

I’m going to call your brother. He is going to help communicate this message to your dad. He will keep him in line up there while I advocate for you here.

__________________________________________________________________

A few days and several nightmares later, I am lost in a sea of confusion once more.

What if he died? What if I never tell him that I love him or that I forgive him or that Christ can make him new? Will he know it? What if I never talk to my gene-giver again? What if the pain I cause—what if the pain is too great it kills him? His heart is already weak. What if I am the cause of his death?

The doubts begin to fester again, all bubbly and infectious. Tumbling around in my brain hours into the darkness. Do I really trust the one I barely know, the one beneath whom I have submitted my heart, the one who tells me no, even when I cry?

Submission is a challenge, a hard thing to learn. Especially when you have never had to. Especially when you’ve been hurt. Deeply. Especially when he’s a man. Especially when men have often hurt you. Especially when you already have it all figured out. Especially when you think you can save the world. Especially when you befriend pride intimately. Especially when you’re scared. 

Then they remind me, this man and wife whose home I dwell inside, they bring me back to reality. She tells me he might die—it could happen. But it is not going to be your fault when it does. You have to stop letting your thoughts go there. He tells me I need to trust him, that he is protecting me, that it is for my good. She tells me it was not my fault—but that I cannot save him. He tells me that I am prideful to think otherwise. She tells me I am just going to have to silence my doubts and chose to submit, no matter what. He tells me it is his head on the line before a holy God, not mine.  She tells me if I don’t start learning this now, marriage is going to be a mess. The Holy Spirit reminds me that I choose this—that I chose submission. I still have a choice—I have to keep choosing it. For my future, I have to get this down.

For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. −1 Peter 3:5-6

The truth is I still want to run away—and sometimes I do, in my head. I still don’t want to let my eyes meet his at times. I still get this ugly feeling that slithers its way up my body every time the subject arises. I still don’t feel like trusting him most days. I circle around and around in my brain for hours a day, cycling through the doubts and the what-ifs. I epitomize insanity

I did not choose what was to come of the one whose genes I bear. I did not choose him. Yet, the Lord knew. He also knew one day I would walk on the path He had paved through the ruble & ashes—he knew from day one I would end up here, in this place with a family of twelve, with this fear, with this daddy pursuing me. He also knew He would birth something deeper, this desire to submit to authority, this desire to learn my role as a woman, as a daughter, as a future wife and mum. And only He knows why—only He knows what is to come of this trying season. As the control continues slipping through my grasp, all I can do is choose Christ—freedom—joy—obedience—submission. All I can do is humbly say yes, I trust you.

It’s better this way, he tells me. I want to take the burden from you—you have to chose to let me. The decision has been made—it’s done. Quit picking it back up! You are safe. Rest in my protection. Please, just rest. Stop thinking. CHOSE to trust me. I am not him. I am for you, daughter, now rest. You are not in this alone. Trust me.

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife^[a] is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. −1 Cor. 11:3

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. -James 4:7

For the Fatherless

Did you grow up with a man to whom you cannot even grant the title father? When you think about the deep hurts and heartaches of your life, do you see the man whose genes and curse you bear?

Do you know that you are not alone? Actually wherever you are today…out to dinner, at a movie, standing in line at Walmart—half of the women around you can speak the same story. Coming from that place myself, let me tell you there is hope and freedom—only in Christ Jesus.

I often write about my daddy issues like over HERE, over HERE, over HERE and over HERE. Mostly because I think too many girls know the horrific pain, apart from the transformational hope. The church fails to meet the need, more often then acknowledging it. But men and women who fear the Lord—there is an overwhelming need of daughters without dads. And I guarantee they are sitting next to you in the pew every week.  

When I was a little girl, my dad did not protect me. When I was a young girl, my dad hurt me. When I was a teenage girl, my dad taught me I could not trust men. As a woman today, I am a mess!

Since knowing Him, God has strategically surrounded me with men who fear Him—and love me as He does. Yet the wounds from my past run deep, infection spreading to many areas of life, areas which I am yet to fully identify. I suppose He had the plan all along—He knew I needed gentleness and the flipping of the calendar in the way fatherly figures would pursue me. But then, at the age of twenty-one, He decided it was time for me to actually live beneath the very authority from which I have spent a lifetime running.

I just have to laugh. Laugh until I cry is more like it.

I watch the way he serves his wife, the way he disciplines his children because his love for them drives him to action. I watch him work hard to provide for his family, then come home and raise his boys while holding his girls’ hearts all at once. I notice the way he pursues his woman, honoring her in his thought and deed. I know that he fears the Lord more then anything else, and this is the only authority in his life. I know that by the grace of God in his life alone, he is different from the man whose genes I carry. So why is it so incredibly hard to believe it?

As I begin to see my heavenly Daddy through the lens of my spiritual one, the enemy continues prowling at the door, a roaring lion, ready to attack.

He tells me not to allow this adopted dad into my life. Fearful, my heart still jumps in my chest when he gives me a side-hug goodnight along with the rest of his daughters. I get so mad at myself too. I often think to myself—how could you, in your great power and love, still allow me to crumble in the consequences of decisions that were not even mine? Daddy, will you ever heal my brokenness?

Yet little do I notice, as the weeks and months pass, in the process of being made new, with great patience the way this spiritual mom and dad love me and protect me and counsel me is piercing through the stone in my heart. Sometimes I find myself wanting a hug goodnight. Though I often expect to be hurt upon making myself vulnerable as I hesitate to reveal my sin, fears, insecurities—he doesn’t hurt me. Actually, he often unloads the weight from my weary soul. That scares me too---is this also God’s desire in my life? Often times I find myself quiet, fearful of saying too much, requiring too much attention. When I do speak though, he is attentive and seems interested, even in the silly little things that don’t require deep conversation. Sometimes, I really just want to listen to him—to gather around the table and talk about the day, about life, about anything.

The Lord is like a Father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. Ps. 103:13

I am learning that so often I still see the Lord through this lens of my earthly dad. I know that He is not him, but I can’t help it. My adopted dad—he is wrecking all of that. Just by allowing me to come beneath his authority and his home, day after day he is peeling back layer upon layer of hurt, deception, and a perverted view of my Heavenly Daddy. As I begin to trust him little by little, my trust in and desire to proclaim the love of Christ is changing my world. I am in awe of God’s grace in my life that he would choose me, allow me for this season of time to draw closer to Himself, to the true and undefiled Him, through relationship with this father he has provided in His grace alone, for me. Even as I soak in this picture, I know my heavenly Father’s love so intimately, more so then before.

There is power in the way I am becoming aware of the perversion which the enemy has built up over the years, in the way I have consistently, subconsciously, sometimes unknowingly known and related to my Heavenly Daddy through the lens of my earthly one

So, here I am an adult woman, with this adopted dad who protects me, who loves the hurt right out of me, who is restoring trust. I sit and write as the tears flow, seeing the Father’s faithfulness in spite of me overwhelms.  

I do not understand the process. All I know is that you don’t get from point A to point Z in a day—in a year. This season, I am working on point A to point B. And that is about all I can handle. Which of course, the LORD knows—and never will He give you or me more then we can handle, yet always He will provide a way out for us to stand up beneath. That is GOOD NEWS. Hello GRACE, oh how my dependency is in you. I will submit to the PROCESS!!


Ask the Lord will provide you a spiritual dad to fill in the gap. Pursue it. Practice submitting to the authority of a God-fearing couple. It is so freeing, even for a control-freak like me! Do life with them. There is only so much us fatherless women can learn from a book. Ask that God would reveal areas which your view of Him is not accurate. Trust that He is the perfect Father--He will never fail you or forsake you. Stand on guard against the enemy. Praise the King, that He has overcome the world!! Rest in the process...little by little, all in His grace and patience. 

27“I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. 28I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. 29But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. 30Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.

                                                                                             Exodus 23:27-30