Maybe you’ve seen it today.

Pictures of fathers and their kids and what-my-dad-always-told-me quotes displayed across social media and television.

Dads embracing daughters. Daughters embracing dads. Dads who would rescue his girl from any potential threat.

Dads fishing with sons. Sons with dads at baseball games. Dads who take the time to make men out of boys.

They’re out there.

Maybe just not for you.

Absent fathers, distant fathers, angry fathers, unloving fathers, alcoholic fathers, emotional and physical pain inflicting fathers …

…

In my first year of life, my birth father did not want to see me. My potential step-father did not want me. After 2 tries my 3rd father adopted me.

Needless to say, it affected me more than I realized. I have always been optimistic, adaptable, and trusting. I had never given it a second thought. I did not jump on the blame-your-parents bandwagon when books started to be written or therapy identifying every “buried” infliction from your past being the cause of your present demise.

Perhaps this is one reason why I have clung so tightly to God. Because I started out with something important missing in my new life. Even though I was too young to wrap my mind around it, the bonding to what is supposed to be did not happen. A part of me did not grow properly.

Abandonment and rejection was imprinted upon my heart whether I wanted it or not.

Nothing is 100% in this life and we all have our stories that have crippled us. So we tend to look for something .. someone .. to fill that emptiness.

I can tell you assuredly, God is who we need.

The Bible says God executes justice for the orphan.

It says God is a father to the fatherless.

It says when our father and mother abandons me the Lord will take me. Another translation says God will hold me close.

These are comforting scriptures revealing the father heart of God. Unfortunately, our first inclination may be to say, “If he loves me like a father, how come he let this happen and that happen?”

One day we will understand. Can you trust God the way we were made to trust our earthly father?

Today, don’t let the hurt consume you. Is is real. It is not visible like a broken arm but God sees it.

I can tell you this: everyone can call God their Heavenly Father, but few know him as Daddy.

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Photo credit: CamillaLindskoug via Remodel Blog / CC BY-NC