My Daughter’s Guest Post: A Father’s Love

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My husband’s father, Frank, recently passed away. We found some of his writings as you sometimes do after someone dies, sorting through their possessions with awe and wonder at all the experiences a human life can hold. I came across a passage written so eloquently that it brought me to tears. With a poetic yet scientific flare, he wrote,

Life is not a novel that is being read slowly. If it were, then the reader would be tempted to skip some parts, re-read others, and sometimes stop and savor a particularly well-written passage, or marvel at a surprise twist of plot… For example, I recently sat on the front porch, in the dark, and listened to a four year old boy explain where the wind is going. He had it figured out and he wanted me to know. Slouching on me like I was a canvas chair, he lay against my belly and chest with his feet dangling idly to either side. He was moving his hands about, shaping the sky and the trees. I felt as though I was listening to his words from a place that was above and behind my body, in the air. I could see my arm resting across him, and the two of us watching a crescent moon rise above the trees… I want to re-read a couple chapters, see how this all came about.

This little passage, written 20 years ago in an email to his sister, has been such a gift to us in the aftermath of his death. And it’s given my husband, Jake, reassurance in his father’s love for him.

But I can’t help but think about all those generations of kids out there that haven’t felt the love of their father. And all those souls that, for any number of reasons, feel unloved by their heavenly father.

One of my very best friends- her husband passed away tragically, suddenly, horrifically- the day before she gave birth to their first born. Where is the Father’s love in that? And, very practically, where will a father’s love be for their little daughter?

Perhaps the biggest empathizer with these feelings of abandonment, worthlessness, and even fear, is Jesus himself. On the cross, he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus understands what it feels like to be separated from the Father’s love and yet he is also the conduit through which the Father’s love comes to earth. This is the mystery of our faith, and the vastness of God’s love. It’s big enough to hold our feelings of abandonment even as it wraps us up in the perfect peace of Christ.

When we are filled up with the perfect love of God our Father, we are free to love people like him. Specifically, we are free to love those that haven’t yet felt the all-encompassing love of the Father. And I’m free to love my friend and her daughter like Christ does.

Now, if you’re like me, this is the point where you’d like some handy steps to follow or a helpful acronym to help you remember how to Fill Up On God’s Love So We Can Love People Like He Does. But I don’t have an acronym, I have a story.

I was reminded of the parable of the persistent knocker at church the other day. It’s the one where the guy keeps knocking on his friend’s door in the middle of the night, but his friend doesn’t get up because it’s the middle of the night, but then the friend does get up because the knocker was so persistent. I always thought of this as one of the lamer, B-list parables. Definitely not loaves and fishes caliber. It also seemed kind of unfair. Like, I asked once, why do I have to keep asking? We are all tired and it’s the middle of the night. But Jesus is gracious to our listening ears and even gives us the moral for this parable, which is rare. Jesus wraps up by saying that our Father will give us good gifts if we ask for them persistently.

And then it hit me- he’s talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will always, always, always fill us up with the perfect love of the Father. We can ask for this love day after day, night after night, and he’ll always open the door for us. The Father’s love will never dry up, never forsake us. It will always be there for us to draw from in order to love others like Christ does. We just have to keep knocking.

By Marietta Reese Stechmeyer

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

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