06/20/2021
The Father I get to celebrate every day.❤️
I remember when God revealed himself as a Father to me and how it changed everything. I had been seeking for awhile. Wandering. Trying to be perfect and follow the rules just right so he’d like me and help me.
I imagined God as not one with a heart but one with an iron will waiting for me to be good enough to bestow on me a good life or at least forgive me for the one I’d all but ruined.
When I made decisions, I did so as an orphan: one who has to fight for every scrap they have in the world and keep their eyes darting back and forth, never at rest because of who might descend upon them and take advantage. I thought because of who I was and the mistakes I’d made, I had to sneak in the back door of heaven. The workers entrance or some unguarded crack in the system.
I prayed and read my Bible and listened to the right songs in the car having no idea I was missing the best part because I didn’t know the truth of who God was.
It was after a very long and painful week of trying to give up things that were bad for me, killing my physical body, warping my mind, and yet the cravings- felt like real chains in my body pulling me toward it. I resisted but felt like I was on fire. I felt actual heat on my skin as all of me withdrew.
The next morning in the plainness of my living room- I felt Him there. I’d felt plenty of spiritual things before, God’s love, comfort, the way His prescience cuts through the darkness of intense warfare and that gentle but profound peace that descends like a cloud the moment you think you’ll crumble without it, but this wasn’t any of that.
He was there. I could feel Him like I never have before and I didn’t understand why He would show up. My house was messy, I was messy, everything was bad- I had a plan to get shiny but wasn’t even on step three of six thousand. I had nothing to give and no good words memorized and ready.
But He was there as if I’d made Him a key and we’d had an appointment and to make things even more kind baffling…He was smiling. I could feel His smile: warm and proud and as clear as it was before my physical eyes, every cell in my body and wisp in my spirit knew the same way I know the Earth is under my feet: that He was a Father who loves and delighted in me, his very small child.
He was happy with me. I could feel it. In messy me. In broken and spiritually infected me. He was smiling and it was a smile of love.
As I gazed into where I could almost touch His spirit hovering but didn’t dare get any closer in case I made it go away, all of my misgivings about who I am, they evaporated because in His presence you not only know the truth about Him but yourself too and I knew I was a loved.
It wasn’t a love I created or earned, it was just there and it was real and for me.
All other identities: mother, worker, friend, they all melted off of me and in that place of time and space stood only a smiling Father and loved child.
Not knowing where it came from or why, I drank it with my soul like a starving person.
I don’t know how long I was in that room gazing, but it was a long time because I didn’t want to look away. I didn’t want Him to ever leave while knowing He never would. But the intensity, I knew it wouldn’t stay like that.
And it didn’t. Life began to ring. But the way spiritual encounters keep their perfect freshness and mark your spirit for life, I carry it with me daily and it changed everything.
I approach God with the boldness and love of a child who wakes up a parent at 2am to ask if they can’t scoot into bed with them and talk about cars or admit they peed somewhere they shouldn’t because they know they are loved. His love is a tangible place, like a divine hammock of sorts, a tight secure place I can go to it and rest in when I can’t do anything else.
When the floor opens from underneath me and I begin to fall, I sometimes get mad and point a finger at Him knowing He can take it, will take it, and dry my tears, and help me get back home. Patiently. Without condemnation. And will never bring it up later.
I sometimes think, marvel at how God wasn’t content with being just God. Master of the cosmos, worshipped by angels…He had it all and wanted to be Abba knowing how difficult children can be. They can get into trouble, bad trouble and you have to sometimes simply watch. They can reject you. But when they learn, when they smile…oh…is that why?
I don’t know. I just know He has a Father’s heart full of a love that doesn’t exist here. It’s like the purest water, warm like fresh bread and so strong. There’s much I don’t understand in this world. I’m not an example of responsibility, goodness, stability or even faith because I only believe because He showed me.
But I do know about His love and its what sustains me.
It’s hard for many people to believe God is a good father because theirs let them down. Human beings do that. And while I disagree with many things God has done, like spiders and mosquitos and my twenties (ok He didn’t do that, I did) and still have a hard time trusting sometimes because I get afraid, I know His heart because He showed me and I know it’s a safe place.
It’s a Father’s heart. I know He cries. I know He laughs. I know He waits up for me. I know He makes good plans and is patient while I fight against them because they remind me of something scary or I can’t see the whole thing. I know He’s lets me fall a bit as I learn but has also protected me from so much and will catch me.
I don’t know everything about Him but I know He knows my name and loves me.
When I wake up, I talk to Him first, even if it’s just a good morning. This is what the sky looked like today after I said it today. I know He hears and likes my good mornings.
I hope that you get to see His heart. It’s actually softer than most realize and very beautiful albeit mysterious.
He gave me this verse to share with anyone who wants it.
But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. John 1:11
Ok. I hope your day is peaceful and you feel a cool breeze or the sun’s warmth, whichever you need the most.
Love,
Bunmi
(Image description: the bright white yellow morning sun on a blue sky)
