Entitled to the Father's Love?

As I was writing about my Daddy, I began to think about the Father's love for me. I realized that I have never breathed one breath of life without knowing that God loves me. "For God so loved the world," was never a new discovery for me....and thanks to my parents, I have always lived knowing that Jesus died on the cross for me.

Since the Father's love has always been on the landscape of my life, I have begun to wonder if I am "entitled." You know, the same thing we say about our own kids and their generation. They are entitled to a college education paid for by us...they are entitled to not having to work as hard in life as we had to...etc. It's a complaint really.

In my reflection of this, I realized that possibly, I feel entitled to God's love and sacrifice for me. I mean, I can't think of a minute without it.

It occurred to me that I never knew life without my earthly Father's love. I was born and he was there with an implied love. I moved through life just knowing...

Now, my Dad was not terribly demonstrative with his love, it was implicit. The fact is, he didn't start saying the words, "I love you" to me until, as an adult, I forced him because I always said it to him and it was awkward for him NOT to reply. He soon became very comfortable with using the words, "I love you."

My Daddy expressed his love in ways that Father's should express love. He made a living and paid for our food and shelter. He prayed for us daily. He loved my mother and stayed married to her for over 55 years, until he passed from this life.

I didn't realize it at the time, but my Father's last words to me were an expression of his tacit love for me. In the last week of his life, all of his functions were shutting down. A few days before he died, I was on the phone with him, not realizing this would be the last conversation we would ever have. Just before we hung up my Daddy said these words to me, "Do you love me as much as I love you?" By the next day, he could no longer speak.

I cannot tell you how much it means to me to have had my Daddy speak those words to me as his last.

Maybe I did feel entitled...and maybe I do take my Father's love for granted...but isn't that what kids do?

Sometimes You Just Need Your Daddy

When I was 12 years old, our youth group in Reno was doing our bit for the kingdom by "passing out tracks" (don't get me started.)

I still remember that I was wearing my new, big white faux fur coat when he grabbed me... the guy came out of a bar we were walking past and just grabbed me, poured beer on me and tried pulling me inside. I was terrified...but only for a moment. Because out of nowhere came my Daddy! He had been driving down the street and stopped the car in the mid-traffic and rescued me!

My Father was watching from His STRONG TOWER and rescued me from my enemy.

In my adult life I have experienced the rescuing hand of my Father in some very profound ways. So profound, in fact, that the stories do not translate into words well, so I must speak in general terms.

I was faced with a spiritual and physical evil at one time, so much so, that I feared for my life and those in my household. At that face-to-face moment I cried out in a loud voice, "JESUS!" ...and the evil immediately and palpably disappeared. This was VERY REAL and once again, my Daddy saved me!

I ran into the strong tower and was saved. I knew instinctively that demons could NOT stand against the name of Jesus. It was then that I knew what it meant to have Him as my ROCK.

Lest you think I am over-spiritualizing this, just remember I EXPERIENCED IT. It is not a story I read somewhere nor was it a dream. This sort of experience took the concept of Jesus being my strong tower to a whole new level.

I was trying to get an idea of what a "strong tower" was in the biblical times, so I could get the context in which it was written: "The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and are saved and protected." (Prov. 18:10 - my paraphrase.)

"Since David pictured God as a tower and not just a plain tower but a HIGH tower, he most likely was using a picture of what he knew a tower to be. In the Biblical days, these towers were either circular or square in shape and varied in height from 15 feet to 50 feet. One archaeologist found an unfinished tower, which had been built to the height of 60 feet and was 12 feet thick. What David was referring to here was that he experienced not only a place where the enemy didn't have access but also a watch-tower where God Himself would detect the coming of the enemy at a distance."

I love it that my Father is watching to see the enemy coming and protecting me.

This song is one of my themes: He is MY STRONG TOWER!

They Don't Dance

I recently watched an older movie called "Molly." It is a true story about a profoundly autistic young woman. I was struck by a scene in which she was trying to explain to a group of doctors and psychiatrists how it was to be in her head.

She said, "I think that's what I find most strange about this world...is that nobody ever says how they feel. They hurt but they don't cry out

they're happy but they don't dance or jump around

and they're angry but they hardly ever scream because they'd feel ashamed...nothing's worse than that...

...so we all walk around with our heads looking down...
and never look up and see how beautiful the sky is."

When I was young, all I wanted to be was a dancer and a mommy. I was encouraged in my mommy quest by being the mother to my dollies and eventually, to my five children

...but the dancer in me was starved and eventually died.

There were never aspirations of stardom, but maybe just dancing with the Jackie Gleason Dancers would have sufficed. I don't really place total blame on my religious upbringing, but it did play a large part in the squelching of my body trying to keep up with my joy.

You see, OUR God did not go for dancing...he just would not tolerate my body moving the way He created it to move... or maybe it was the Pharisees who made those rules and everyone just blindly followed.

...What I DO know is that the joy I felt when I put on my noisiest shoes and went into the kitchen and pretended to be a tap dancer was a memory that will never leave my mind. The fun I had when I took square dancing at school (even though I was not supposed to - I kept it from my parents.) And the sheer pleasure of my expressive dances by myself while listening to Three Dog Night or Bread up in my attic room.

Did I ever feel guilty? NOT ONE IOTA! Did I feel JOYFUL? You betcha I did! I never did buy into the "dancing is a sin" baloney. In my mind, I reasoned that God would not have created our bodies like that if it didn't please Him...and I would not have read about "David dancing before the Lord with all his might..."

So what does all of this have to do with MY HAPPY HEART? Well, I think if I can find that girl who used to express joy by dancing or jumping up and down...

...then I may look up and see how beautiful the sky is.

Wide Open Spaces

And I'll stride freely through wide open spaces
as I look for your truth and your wisdom;
Then I'll tell the world what I find,
speak out boldly in public, unembarrassed.

In my Christian life, I have been conditioned to allow myself to be shackled by many things.

No one person or set of people actually taught this to me...but it has always been implied with this stripe of "Christian" that I wear.

When I first really gave my life to the Lord at 16 years old, in the Jesus people movement, the buzz words of the day were "discipline" "obedience" "submission" "self control"... law, law, law! Looking back, I wonder where the grace was...and what about JOY?

What about striding freely through wide open spaces?!

As a child, I remember running through fields with wild abandon. ...not running towards anything nor away from anything...but just running for the sheer joy of it. What in the world happened to that? In my mind, I can almost FEEL it!

...and I remember, once again, my HAPPY HEART.

...freely through wide open spaces

I love this passage of scripture that I found. But first I have to take time with it. I know it has something to say. Especially the bold part. But I have to take a shower now and can't think yet....I will get back.

What do you think it means for me?

Psalm 119:45 (The Message)

41-48 Let your love, God, shape my life

with salvation, exactly as you promised;

Then I'll be able to stand up to mockery

because I trusted your Word.

Don't ever deprive me of truth, not ever—

your commandments are what I depend on.

Oh, I'll guard with my life what you've revealed to me,
guard it now, guard it ever;
And I'll stride freely through wide open spaces
as I look for your truth and your wisdom;
Then I'll tell the world what I find,
speak out boldly in public, unembarrassed.
I cherish your commandments—oh, how I love them!—
relishing every fragment of your counsel.

Being

This morning when I woke, I asked the Lord what He wanted to say to me today. So I picked up my beloved 30 year old Bible and opened it to Eph. 5. In verse 9 it says "find out what pleases the Lord." So I asked the Lord to show me what pleases Him.

I went out to the kitchen to have some coffee with my sister and she was looking at pictures of her grandchildren on her IPhone and making deep noises of pleasure while looking at them and thinking of them. (Of course, she does this several times a day...)

...But this time the Lord spoke to me and said - "YOU please me. There is nothing you have to do. YOU are mine and I am pleased with YOU."

So I guess I just need to learn to BE rather than DO. ...that is going to be hard for me, but He definitely showed me, so I am going to listen.

Wondering Where I Went....

You see, I have always had a HAPPY HEART. That is the one thing I do know. Whenever I remember things from my life, I have a HAPPY HEART...

I remember a lot of childhood things.

I remember back to about 3 years old...really, I do. Not everything, but snippets of life with a HAPPY HEART.

I remember sounds I made while walking (ch-ch-ch), sights I saw (a huge horse in our orchard), or smells I smelled (my Mama making pancakes on a Saturday morning and I was wearing a white shirt with a red striped "v" at the neck.)

Even things I said ("Mama, why is that lady so fat?" Mama said, "Don't say fat, say large." "Mama why is that lady so laaage?" I couldn't say my r's at the time.)

Thoughts that I thought when my older sister and brother would play "run away from Diddy-Win, hide from the ghost!" (I was Diddy-Win and I would chase them with the thought that one day I WOULD catch them!)

Most everything was happy. I have a HAPPY HEART.

Life has a way....

Life has a way of burying who you are sometimes. It doesn't mean to...it just does. So I want to see if, by writing from my heart, I can find my way back to my HAPPY HEART.