Father

My Father who has given them to me, is greater than al, no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. John 10:29

 

Last night I watched a movie which included a relationship between a father and daughter. The daughter loved her father completely. He was her hero and her heart. Eventually she would discover that her hero had feet of clay. He was effusive and charismatic and he loved her to the best of his limited ability but his abilities were tainted and extremely limited. It broke her heart to realize that this giant, this personality, this father was a damaged human being who left pain and catastrophe in his wake. It reminded me in some ways of my own father and of a conversation I had recently with a friend.

My father has a big personality. He is charming and endearing when you know him only on the surface. I was reminded of him when my friend Kim was telling me a story about a man her daughter had met at work. He was an older man but still full of life and humor. Kim’s daughter was taken by his energy and apparent joy. As Kim told me the story I did not picture a lovely old man, fun to know, delightful to encounter. Instead I felt a revulsion to this described man as he so seemed to resemble my father who most people would describe, with a certain amount of accuracy, the same way.

There is a part of me that still loves my father but I do not respect him. It took me years, like the woman I saw in the movie, to give myself permission to love the man but still hate the sin and pain he brought with him.

Those three factors, the movie father, my own father and the man in Kim’s story came together for me as I read in Luke where Jesus cries out to his Father, our Father right before he faces death.  I saw in my mind the scenes from the movie where father and daughter were so happy together and remembered a few similar moments from my own life. I also remembered the underlying dread that this happy go lucky version would at any moment change before my very eyes. Right then I felt an immense gratitude for a Father who never changes, whose love is unconditional, who does not have feet of clay but rather arms open wide to those of us who do.

So many people have been hurt by fathers and mothers who carry hurt from the generations that came before them. It makes it difficult sometimes to embrace the idea of a loving Father who will never leave or forsake us and yet He is very real.

There were scenes in the movie and in my life of cruelty and anger. There are no such scenes with our heavenly Father. He does not reject our offerings or our love simple and flawed though they may be. Instead He blesses our paltry offerings and turns them into gold.  His faithfulness is great. His love is perfect and is literally without end. (Lamentations 3:22-24, 1 Corinthians 13:8)