A Love Letter From My Father

My friend Dinah left this on my porch on the week of my birthday. The scriptures blew me away. It is a love letter from my Father. The very thing I needed. The thing my heart longs for. I hope you can read it, because it is a love letter from your Father to you, as well. You can click on the photo to enlarge it if it helps to read it.

Before I really knew the One I serve, my heart was desperate to know that I was loved. I was never really secure in that knowledge...never certain that I was loved, worthy, or had value when I was younger. I think people often have preconceived notions about God based on our own experiences in human relationships. When the tough stuff comes our way, we often revert back to those preconceived notions.

There's a great book that talks about this called The Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free. This post would be so much better if I could find the book and insert some quotes from it. But, alas, I am confined to this dungeon/basement of mine, working on digging my way out of the piles of disorganization that I have allowed to manifest here. And, I haven't yet reached the place where that treasure of a book lies in wait. Please take my word for it, though. This book is worth your time.

One of the lies talks about feeling forsaken. I have shared here more than once that is the place I have gone in moments of great sorrow. That is the lie that has been whispered to me in the darkness over the years. "God is able...His love is amazing. But it's not for you. You didn't measure up. He has turned from you...forsaken you. He left you." I won't get into the reasons behind the fact that this particular lie was so effective for me. That is the lie that I battled before kneeling before my Lord to surrender my life to Him. It's the lie that threatened when Faith and Grace left this earth. The lie mocking me on that rainy day when we heard the words that our Thomas was "incompatible with life." It was the same lie as I stood watching my mother suffer greatly and die slowly and painfully. "What if He doesn't come? What if He leaves us here?" I believed His promises, but I have struggled at times with wondering if they were for me.

God's truth has squelched the lies of the enemy each time he has roared his ugly lion roar. And He has given me victory in many ways over that weak place of doubt and fear deep inside my heart. He has brought me such a long way, into a place of confidence in His love and in the person He has created me to be. A place of surrender to His will for my life. A place where I can rest in the promise of His love and the sufficiency of the grace He provides. Recently, I've learned that there are still some soft spots that haven't been healed. Still places of brokenness that He wants to restore. He has more to teach me about the depth of His love...the love I still long to know more of.

So, this love letter...from my Father...touched my heart more than I can say. I hope it touches yours as well...and I hope you are able to read it. You are His child...He loves you beyond reason...He delights over you with singing. You are precious to Him. And so am I.

I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. ~ Ephesians 3:16-19