A Love Song to the Only Perfect Father

I never had a father growing up.’

How many men and women use this statement to describe their painful childhood and the condition of their present lives?  Countless.    Usually no further explanation is needed.  In our culture just about everything that ails us, can be summed up within this sad refrain.  Absence fathers is the norm, not  the exception.  Generation after generation of wounded children, stagger into adulthood carrying bright, unfaded scars.  The effects of which, shows up in our violent schools, over-crowed prisons and the on-demand abortion industry.

Most of us are walking wounded.  I was. Then The Savior let me hear His voice calling me, and one of the first blessings He bestowed upon me—His new creation, was a revelation of who God IS.  He is a father, The Father, a parent.  I thought, ‘a parent’.  Wow. Really? Then I saw in scriptures His tenderness and affection toward Moses; His steadfast support and protection of David,  in spite of David’s bad behavior, (whom He disciplined in love).  His relationship with Saul was the most perplexing to me.  Saul was not His choice for king, yet He gave Saul every opportunity to succeed. (Wouldn’t we have kicked this witchcraft-loving brat aside?)

All the distorted images I had of God, began to crumble.  I thought how unfair we are to Him when His desire is to gather us under His wings, to protect and provide for us, just like a good parent would. To know that with all His power and might, He was mine and I was His, overwhelmed my spirit and I became undone.   As David said in his Psalm: You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.

Little did I know that this revelation was the first step in my healing.  I came to see  by parents, a neglectful father and an embittered mother, as people in need of grace.  Just like me.

Throughout my story, in the center of strife and confusion, is the presence of The Perfect Father, whose love for us is beyond measure.

My characters grapple with both circumstances beyond their control, and the consequences of their failures as parents. When they are all brought to end of themselves, and cry out to God for another chance to love their children in a more perfect way, He hears them and answers.