I Craved the Love of my Father

Heart of God:

One of the things I remember about my childhood is the voice of my mother singing hymns early in the morning, she keeps on singing even when driving us to school. I have never asked her why she was doing that, but her actions then, made me to love hymns and most of the ones I know, I learned from her. That's one of her legacy to me.

For the past few weeks, one of the issues at the forefront of my mind is: what kind of example am I to my kids with respect to the things of God? Is there anything that they will have fond memories of? Not of vacations or holiday trips but something that draws them to God. The issue of generations  is at the heart of God, as he instructed the children of Israel several times, the importance of teaching or telling their children what they have seen God do. Deuteronomy 6:7

"You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up."

So, I encourage us to look for teaching moments with our kids, our friends and neighbors. Recently, I saw a Facebook post that made me smile.

 

Courtesy of Humor from Pentecostal Pew

I think the picture is a subtle way of letting neighbors know what you believe. Personally I don't believe in marking or celebrating Halloween and am trying to teach my kids why by going to the scriptures, but I plan on playing this music all through this week. If you are curious to know the music, click on the link below:

Dance in the Holy Ghost: https://youtu.be/I63xA8Mu1d0 

Testimony:

Am sharing a bit of myself today and have mentioned a little of the impact my mum had on my life, but what I want to share relates to my earthly father. When I was around 8 years old, I lost something of immense value that eventually shaped my life for many years. I was crazy in love with my father and I knew he loved me, but an incidence in my family put a crack in that relationship that never healed until Father's day 2 years ago, when I was finally able to lay it all upon the altar of God. Growing up, I felt betrayed, abandoned and unloved by my father. I was bitter towards him and hated him with everything in me. The relationship was so bad that he put a curse on me then, (but for the grace of God, Jesus nailed those curses to the cross and am free from them, Hallelujah), however many years later on, he physically reversed the curses and prayed for me. The wonder of it was that I came to know my heavenly father and his love for me when the relationship with my earthly father was broken. God, his word and promises sustained me, He also provided me with mentors who I looked upon as fathers.  Despite this, I still had a broken relationship with my father till he passed on about 6 years ago. One of the regrets I had was not making better efforts to fully reconcile with him but like I mentioned earlier, God took away my regrets and bitterness 2 years ago.

Throughout yesterday, as I was praying and meditating on what to write, what testimony to share, I drew blank until around 11pm. That's when I wrote the introduction above but no testimony and I eventually gave up around 2am and decided to go to bed. But God, who always has plans and works everything out made a way as I was about to sleep, my phone beeped, and I got an email from Faithgateway. I read the email and it was about a book written by Lee Stroble . It included an except that has some similarities with my own story.  Here it is:

The Search for Grace: My father and My Father by Lee Stroble from The Case for Grace

[God] waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain. — A. W. Tozer He was leaning back in his leather recliner in the wood-paneled den, his eyes darting back and forth between the television set and me, as if he didn’t deign to devote his full attention to our confrontation. In staccato bursts, he would lecture and scold and shout, but his eyes never met mine. It was the evening before my high school graduation, and my dad had caught me lying to him — big-time. Finally, he snapped his chair forward and shifted to look fully into my face, his eyes angry slits behind his glasses. He held up his left hand, waving his pinky like a taunt as he pounded each and every word: “I don’t have enough love for you to fill my little finger.” He paused as the words smoldered. He was probably expecting me to fight back, to defend myself, to blubber or apologize or give in — at least to react in some way. But all I could do was to glare at him, my face flushed. Then after a few tense moments he sighed deeply, reclined again in his chair, and resumed watching TV. That’s when I turned my back on my father and strode toward the door. I didn’t need him. I was brash, I was driven and ambitious — I would slice my way through the world without his help. After all, I was about to make almost a hundred dollars a week at a summer job as a reporter for a rural newspaper in Woodstock, Illinois, and live on my own at a boarding house. A plan formulated in my mind as I slammed the back door and began the trek toward the train station, lugging the duffel bag I had hurriedly packed. I would ask the newspaper to keep me on after the summer. Lots of reporters have succeeded without college, so why not me? Soon I’d make a name for myself. I’d impress the editors at the Chicago papers and eventually break into the big city. I’d ask my girlfriend to move in with me. I was determined to make it on my own — and never to go back home. Someday, there would be payback. The day would come when my father would unfold the Chicago Tribune and his eye would catch my byline on a front-page exclusive. That would show him. I was on a mission — and it was fueled by rage. But what I didn’t realize as I marched down the gravel shoulder of the highway on that sultry June evening was that I was actually launching a far different quest than what I had supposed. It was a journey that I couldn’t understand back then — and which would one day reshape my life in ways I never could have imagined. That day I embarked on a lifelong pursuit of grace Grace Withheld, Grace Extended See to it that no one misses the grace of God. — Hebrews 12:15 Ü I always wondered: Would I cry when my father died? After the confrontation in which my dad declared he didn’t have enough love for me to fill his little finger, I stormed out of the house, determined never to return. I lived for two months in a small apartment nearly forty miles away as I worked as a reporter for a small daily newspaper. The publisher agreed to hire me beyond the summer. My future seemed set. I never heard from my father, but my mother kept urging me to return. She would call and write to tell me my dad certainly couldn’t have meant what he said. Finally, I did come home briefly, but my father and I never discussed the incident that prompted me to leave. I never broached it, and neither did he. We maintained a civil but distant relationship through the years. He paid for my college tuition, for which I never thanked him. He never wrote, visited, or came to my graduation. When I got married after my sophomore year at the University of Missouri, my parents hosted the reception, but my dad and I never had a heart-to-heart talk. Fresh from Missouri’s journalism school, I was hired as a general assignment reporter at the Chicago Tribune, later developing an interest in law. I took a leave of absence to study at Yale Law School, planning to return to the Tribune as legal editor. A few days before my graduation, I settled into a cubicle in the law school’s gothic library and unfolded the New York Times for a leisurely morning of reading. I was already prepared for my final exams and was getting excited about returning to Chicago. Then my friend Howard appeared. I folded the newspaper and greeted him; he stared at me as if he had something urgent to say but couldn’t find the right words. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He didn’t answer, but somehow I knew. “My father died, right?” He nodded, then led me to the privacy of a small alcove, where I sobbed inconsolably.

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Prayer for Today:

Thank you Almighty father for loving us. We thank you for your grace poured out upon our lives. We ask that in your mercies you heal our broken hearts, help us to know how deep, how wide your love is. Help us to be good examples to those around us. May people see the love of Christ in us and may we continue to have fellowship with you Amen.