Day 141: To Be A Daughter

 

“Abba, Father, everything is possible for You. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want Your will, not mine.” Mark 14:36

“So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.” Luke 15:20-21

When I went up to Seattle a few weeks ago to visit some friends, I went down to Green Lake to see what all the hype was about (one of my friends lives near it, and is always talking about how beautiful the area is). So, before meeting up with him, I made my way down to the water. I took some pictures, watched an American Heart Association run, complete with people in costume, and made a new friend who lived not too far away. But, when I first got there, what first caught my eye was a father playing with his two children.

I am a sucker for kids having fun, and when I see what seems to be good parenting. I love that these kids were out and about, even though it was freezing out, instead of being plopped in front of a TV. They were playing chase with their dad, when one of the younger ones said “Abba, abba, look at me, look what I can do!”

I was floored.

That word that I had heard so often in church, and how it was a term that Jesus used with God that was so familial and endearing. I was seeing it used in that way, and although it seems silly, it was a sight to see.

There was joy in that boy's face, an honest desire to show his father what he was so proud of being able to do. I couldn't help but think what there was in my life that would cause me to call to God like that. Was there anything? In my life, was there anything I was that excited about?

I stood in the cold and wondered, with my toes turning blue as I tried to reconcile my life with the joy in that boy's words.

I still think about that moment.

I want to not only recognize that God is my father, and daddy, but I want to treat him as such. So often I feel far away because He is so big, and I am so small, but I forget that He meets me where I am. He wants to hear about my day, what is on my heart, my hopes, my fears, etc. He wants everything, because he is a perfect dad.

All I want is to learn how to be a good daughter.

I missed out on really forming a bond with my step-dad because I went through an angry adolescent phase, especially when my siblings were born. I was bitter because I didn't know my biological father, and I resented everyone in my family for it. I wasn't concerned with being a good daughter, or with being anyone's daughter at all. I wanted everyone to feel my pain, and so I acted out.

Looking back at it now, I see the silliness behind it all. But, I don't really regret it, because it has brought me to where I am now.

Every day, God calls me to rely on him as my father, and it is my choice to do so. I want not only to do this, but to be like the child giving love with reckless abandon. I don't want to only know what Abba literally means, but I want to know how it feels. I want to engage with God in that relationship.

Here goes nothing.

In Christ,

Lilia