Warmth, security, love, embrace, a hero, a protector, an honored man of God, and sympathetic to a daddy’s little girl, is what defines the word dad, father. He is the one who protects my heart. He is my hero. He is the one who teaches me how a man should treat a woman. He kisses me on the cheek to greet me. He provides the warm embrace of a hug that seems to take away any fear that consumes my being.  He is the one who makes all my troubles seem like little hurdles instead of the big obstacles in my way. He is always there to catch me when life gets me down. He is the one in the stands cheering me on as I play soccer, basketball, volleyball,  run triathlons, whatever I enjoyed, he enjoyed alongside me. He signifies to me all that a girl would ever want for in a father. He is simply put the man who wants nothing more than the best for me and will do all he can to protect my heart. He is the first to wrap his arms around me when my heart is broken. He is the shoulder my head leans on when the tears come. He is my father.

“Jesus love me this I know for the Bible tells me so , little ones to him belong they are weak but he is strong, Yes, Jesus loves, Yes Jesus loves me for the Bible tells me so” these are the words in my heart as my dad lay lifeless in a room. Slowly entering into the arms of the our eternal Father. I stood outside his room singing these words. I suppose it could have been heart warming for my dad to hear the voice of his daughter singing about Jesus as he passed from this life to the next. My Father passed on from this life when I was four years old. All that I would become crashed in those moments. The man I would need as I grew up was gone. I was left standing all alone staring at a casket that possessed his body. I was left with an eternal emptiness and heart cracked. What I wanted or needed a father to be was instantly gone, taken away in a moment’s time. I could never have imagined the pain the years ahead of me would bring. Seeking a father. Seeking a man to fill that need. To fill that emotional tank of my heart. I wouldn’t fully grasp the gaps in my being due to a lack a father until I was much older. Scared. Yes, scared because at the impressionable age of four, life was altered. I was left only imagining what a real father would have been like.

As I lay in my bed at night and talk to Jesus, Abba Father. You are the only Father I know. The One who has the best view of me. I suppose some days I wish your view wasn’t so great. You see me, in every moment of my day, good and bad. You know when I awake and when I sleep. You know when my heart hurts so desperately but the tears can’t come. You know the void inside of me. You know all there is to know about me. Abba Father you are the God, who has accepted me and tied a thread from your heart to mine. A thread that  permanently connects us. The thread that unites us. For when my heart is broken, your heart breaks for me.

No one in the stands to cheer me on, no arms to embrace me, no hug to take away the pain nor is there a shoulder to cry on, there are not even tears to shed because the tears that want to come have been shut down from a barrier I have put up. A barrier I fight everyday. I fight my need to feel loved by a father. I fight my need to feel embraced by a father. I fight the shoulder to cry on and let myself go. I fight back the feelings. I fight back emotions. I have fought so long, I don’t know how to let go and let God fill me.

I am adopted by Abba Father. A Father in heaven who loves me “as is” and his love is perfect, who affectionately bestows His goodness upon me everyday. A Father who is for me, forever. A Father I have relied on all while longing for an Earthly Father to fill that void of emptiness within me.  I still long for an Earthly Father. A man that can fill this cracked and broken heart. Abba Father, you have pressed forward with me. You have protected my heart, cheered me on from the gates of Heaven, you have cried with me in the silence of my home, you have picked me up when I have fallen on my face, and you have embraced me with your love. Fill the cracks of my heart. Protect me. Break me down. Fill the crevices of this heart.

Through it all, through it all ,it is well, it is well with my soul…