A Father who will always love us

As we look to celebrate Father’s Day this coming weekend, I’m reminded of the greatest father there is – the one who will never forsake us or fail us. He is a kind, loving Father full of grace and truth. No matter how far we’ve strayed, He awaits us with open arms just like the father did in the prodigal son story.

He is the father who never changes. His love is from everlasting to everlasting. Nothing we’ve done, are doing or will do, will ever change that. People’s affection may change but the Father’s love never changes.

I wish I knew and understood this in my heart as a young teenager when I helplessly looked to the world to find my identity. Like the prodigal son, I left my spiritual home in hopes of finding meaning and purpose elsewhere.

God answered my parent’s prayers and brought me back to Himself in my early 20s. And coming home to the heart of the Father — this journey of knowing my Heavenly Father – has become my life anthem and hence the name of this blog.

The one thing that has and keeps changing my life to the core has been knowing my Heavenly Father and his great love for me. And yet I know that even what I think I know is but a drop in the bucket.

When our first child was born, it gave me great joy to watch my husband hold our baby and delight himself over her. We both did. With each child, we were astonished at how much love could swell up in our hearts for someone so tiny and helpless. And as the children grew they looked to us … but they looked to their father for an affirmation of their identity.

It was the same way with me … my father’s approval carried a weight that I cannot explain, and I see how my three children look to their father in a similar way.

What an enormous responsibility for fathers. I was talking to an older friend/mentor about how I wished my husband could do things a bit differently at times with our kids and she says,

“Given his experience, I think he’s doing a great job, don’t you?”

She was right and I told her so. Fathering is a hard job and my husband needs all the encouragement he can get from me.

There’s a drawing that our middle child did of her father throwing her into our pool and she’s mid-air. I’m in a lounge chair nearby with a cup of coffee in my hand, and I smile. Our kids have been blessed with a dad who not only tosses them into the pool but takes them to the field to play in the hay stacks and one who is building them a zip-line in the backyard.

I know that he wants them to have fun and to give them good things … how much more so does our Heavenly Father.

There are no perfect dads or moms, and that’s why in this journey to the heart of the Father, we are learning that we can only parent to the extent we know our identity in our Heavenly Father. He loves us unconditionally and yet how hard it is to show that same unconditional love to our young ones.

The truth is He would not have given us our three children who are so uniquely different if He also had not also equipped us to be the earthly vessels to show His love for them. A huge part of that has got to be in pointing our children to Him … because while we may fail them (and we do), He never will.

For over 10 years, our family worked with kids who live in government-run children homes (something like an orphanage) here in Czechia, and we’ve seen the effects of rejection, abandonment and abuse on young precious lives. Our hearts have ached over their pain and wounds. But we have also seen healing and hope come into their lives as they’ve come to know our Heavenly Father’s great love for them.

We’ve had the privilege of introducing them to the Father who is the father to the fatherless, the one you can always come home to, the one who will never fail you or let you down. Yes, He is a father who delights in you, who loves you just as you are and who sees you as the apple of His eye.

And like them, because we’re all children in God’s eye, we travel this road that leads to Papa’s heart because ultimately that is where our home lies.

Happy Father’s Day dear ones!