The Father's Love

This lent our Lord taught me so many things that I'm sure I have not yet realized, but there is one part that I want to share with you all - the Father's Love. The love of the Father is something that is so hard to grasp in this world, with so much brokenness, especially in family life - and even more so with lack of fatherly figures specifically.

So as I may have mentioned, I help with a high school youth group this year and the Lord has taught me a lot about the Father's love through this. We recently talked to at a girl's night about stress in anxiety and after that night I realized how many of these girls were struggling with depression and anxiety and my heart broke for them. To see the people I love suffer has always been something that weighs heavy in my heart and caused my heart to ache for them. I would often have this desire to take away their suffering, though I can't, which is where Jesus comes in. He died on the cross, and resurrected from the dead for the salvation of our souls.

I was expressing this ache in my heart to one of my friends and she looks at me and says "Amber, what your saying makes me think of the Father. I imagine that in heaven the Father turns to Jesus as they ache for us and for our salvation." And this greatly impacted. I was sitting struggling through some of my own challenges and thinking about this when it dawned on as I am aching for these girls, how much more is the Lord aching for me.

My dad travels for work a lot, and he is presently in Iowa, and with this specific job I only get to see my dad once every 3ish months which is really hard, especially when I was used to seeing him about twice a month. And there was another time, when I was missing my dad, even moments when I would begin to cry because I longed for my daddy, for his hugs, for his warmth, for our tradition of eating popcorn while watching movies at night.. and I realized, if I, an imperfect human long so much for my imperfect, human father, how much more must the Father long for me, and how much more should I be longing for the Father?

So basically, the Father's love exceeds beyond what are minds can fathom. It is so vast, so great, so deep, that he gave up his only son out of love for us. If you don't have a good concept of the Father I just want to encourage each of you pray into this, to start reflecting on your relationship with you earthly father and your relationship with your Heavenly Father. If you need healing in some area seek that, our God is a God of mercy, a God of love and he desires to know us, and to lavish his love on us.