A FATHER I CAN’T REMEMBER
Christine Wyrtzen
Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the Lord; exult before him! Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity. Psalm 68:4-6
God wants me to know something about the nature of His love. I had a loving, attentive father in the first days of my development. Though my memory may be fuzzy and my recollection of Him absent, if I could go back in time and roll the video tape in the spiritual realms, I would see how active God was. I would see how He preserved me.
Oh, the heartbreak of a Father who has loved well, how deep the pain of a tender parent who has invested Himself yet I did not acknowledge Him for a long time. Instead, though I knew Him to be Father, I ignored Him while playing with toy gods. The pain He must have felt went beyond a mild sting. It was a blow to His heart.
Have you ever poured out your soul on another only to have your love spurned?
- Perhaps you’ve done it as a parent. You’ve sacrificed to give when there was little left for yourself. The one who drank of your affection didn’t know that you expended the last drop in your well of resources. They tossed your gift aside with disgust. God knows.
- Perhaps you’ve done it as a friend. You watched the promise of friendship unfold like a beautiful flower. You took it slowly and prayerfully. Yet, with all your caution, in time the friendship eroded and your heart was tossed aside like a worthless thing. God knows.
- Perhaps you’ve done it as a spouse. You dreamed the dream of intimacy. You modeled what ‘oneness’ would look like from the way you invested your trust. While you walked through the years with integrity, his heart grew cold and for a while He hid it well. One day, there was a pronouncement that the love was gone. God knows.
God knows! When our love is tossed aside, the wounds often run so deep that we withdraw and stop extending our heart. God does not. He keeps hoping, keeps the ache alive for the purpose of future reconciliation. Have you ever known such a faithful love as this? And may I not miss the bigger message in all of this ~ that when I was indifferent, He was not. When I was faithless, He was not. When I accused Him of being absent, He was not.
You have loved me with an everlasting love, past, present, and future. Whatever trust issues I had should be healed in the truth of our history. Thank you. In Jesus name, Amen
For more from Christine Wyrtzen and Jaime Wyrtzen Lauze, please visit www.daughtersofpromise.org
Originally published Monday, 15 March 2021.
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