The Father's Heart.

The Father's heart has been a constant theme this year and in my encounters with God.In January, I lost my dad to stage four pancreatic cancer after only knowing about it for 43 days. I didn't know my view of God as the Father was inaccurate and lacking until the only tangible expression of a Father's love I had known for 26 years passed into Heaven with my dad and was no longer in the natural and visible. I desperately needed to know my Heavenly Father and His heart for me. I needed Him to tell me who I am. I needed to believe He was good, like I had always heard. Slowly and gently, He's showing me the holes in my perspective of Him and leading me into ever-deepening fullness in Him.Something I heard in my spirit recently was, "I'm looking forward to love every day with you."The thought of these words stops me. I think that's a really kind thought, though definitely too good to be true. And the enemy's tactics within religion and his belittling of God's goodness begin to enter. My mind, without even noticing, begins to think the Father is much too holy and perfect to want to spend His time with me in all my mess. The Father couldn't possibly want to (and definitely could not enjoy and delight in) spending every day, every moment with me.But what He's revealing to me is yes He does. I guess it has taken these little whispers of love to get me here. I keep asking for Him to open the eyes of my heart to see His love for me. I think He smiles and delights in revealing His love; how kind He is.I'm in this process of taking an old thought like "this is too small of a defeat for me to bother Him about" and just letting the Spirit take my assumption of Him to challenge it with Truth. I don't think there's anything too small or insignificant that my Father doesn't want me to come to Him about. I think He longs for me to hold up my arms for Him to pick me up and put me in His lap and let His love heal these daily battle wounds from the world.Another piece of this process has been imagining the Father's face when He looks at me. I think I've thought all too long how His face always has this frown or frustration for all the ways I'm not doing this life right today. But I reflect on my own daddy and his face beaming at me on the sidelines of the trails when I would run my cross country races. I would be running my worst time, but he didn't care. He had the fullest proud daddy heart because his girl was trying. He was cheering me on as loud as he could because that's what dads do. Now, I am prompted with the question, "Why would my Father be any different?" I'm brought into more clarity of what His love looks like.I'm grateful for the process, for the way that He won't stop knocking down the walls lies have built in my heart about His nature. His expressions, His tone of voice, His intentions are the pieces I'm so excited to let Him share with me. I know Him and my daddy are up in Heaven thinking of all the ways they can love on me because that's a father's heart.words and photo by Caitlin EmmrichSaveSave