The Father’s Heart

Have you ever stopped to think about just how much you are loved?

For me, I grew up knowing the love of a Mom and Dad and Grandparents and Aunties and Uncles and Sisters and Brother; well, I had better stop there because if I keep going and I sure could, there is a strong probability that I will leave someone out and I do not intend this to be an exclusive statement.

However, I know that there are so many who do not have this experience and I am not going to start to develop a list of examples - we all know of someone and the purpose of my writing today is not to bring more pain; goodness knows there is enough of that in the world.

Wow - I just had a flashback to the 80’s and a couple of Sandi Patty songs; Shepherd of My Heart and In Heaven’s Eyes.  Yeah, I was a huge fan and still am but let me remind you of some of the lyrics from Heaven’s Eyes.

In heaven's eyes, there are no losers, in heaven's eyes no hopeless cause

There's only people like you, with feelings like me; amazed by the grace we can find

In heaven's eyes.

Beautiful song and even more powerful message - the message of grace.  God’s grace.

You see life happens and sometimes even those who love us the most will withhold that love from us because they get angry at us or are unable to forgive us for something that may have happened a long time ago.  Perhaps we are the ones who struggle to give the love to someone close to us because of hurtful things that have been spoken to us or we have been wounded by actions towards us or even the action of exclusion.

Personally, this has been my experience on both sides of the fence and because we are people who have been given free-will, we try to do our best but do not always get our choices right the first time and this is when I am reminded of the power of grace.

That is the Father’s Heart for us, His Kids - His Grace, His Love.

The past couple of days my emotions have been very close to the surface for different reasons.  We all handle our feelings differently, but for me, I am a crier.  Sometimes I try to work out my feelings another way (even journalling), but inevitably, the tears come.  Yesterday they came while I was standing over our kitchen sink washing dishes and I just let them fall and I talked and prayed to God in the process.  My heart has felt a bit beaten up recently over different things and I talked to God about them.  No, I do not have all the answers, but I let God hold my aching heart.  Aching for my friend who lost her little boy too early, aching to talk to Mom just one more time, aching for broken relationships, aching for precious little Indy who just turned 3 and lost her Mom almost a year ago to Cancer, aching for injustice and a whole lot more and then it occurred to me.  God has gifted me with an incredible gift.  God has given me the capacity to love just a little like He does and what a privilege that is.  I am blessed with the opportunity of a tiny glimpse into how much our Abba Daddy hurts for us, His kids and loves us so much.  He wants to carry the weight of our burdens on His shoulders and He offers us Grace.

Whilst I can only begin to imagine on a very small scale the capacity of love that our Heavenly Father has for us, His Kids, I am so thankful to also experience His love and I hope you do, too.