The Lord has a way of persevering beyond my resistance and doubt. Psalm 23:6 says, in some versions, that He pursues and overtakes us. And He does. He hates those things that stand in the way of our relationship with Him, of our understanding of the depth and breadth and width and height of His love for us. His love is as relentless as the waves on the shore.
The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zeph 3:17
For weeks recently, in my quiet times with the Lord, He started showing me a particular place. It was a real place, a place of warmth and security, of love and support, very different from the realities I lived as a teenager in a very toxic home. I went to camps at this place every summer holidays, for years, from the age of almost 13. What I found there was genuine love and acceptance from Christian people, some of whom I encountered throughout the rest of the year at high-school fellowship groups, church, youth groups, etc. It was a place of safety and peace. I just had this sense that the Lord wanted to take me back there, so I organised to go, without any responsibility, and just spend time seeking the Lord. I asked my friend, Jo, to come along, a friend that I first met at that camp, many years earlier. We are now in the same church, almost 40 years later, which is such a blessing. And we both needed the refreshment.
On the trip down, I kept hearing the phrase, 'Daddy's girl'. I wasn't at all comfortable with that, and decided that was NOT one of the things I wanted to get clarity on while I was there, seeking the Lord. And yet it was on His heart. I had my own agenda for the answers I wanted and needed.
So, I sought the Lord about the things troubling me and got some clarity on those things. I spent hours by the pool, just worshipping, reading, praying, the same pool that I had spent hours swimming in with friends as a teenager. I watched the sun come up each morning, and watched it drop again in the evening. He showed me things in all of it - through the Word, through songs, in prayer, in the natural surroundings.
He started to speak to me about being a new creation, how I had become a new creation in that place because I had become a Christian there, had met Jesus there for the first time. And there was this sense that He wanted to do a lot more, to restore me to what He originally designed me to be, most of which I've buried or ignored, given up or lost over many, many years.
God has designed each of us. We are His workmanship, His design, for a purpose, but also because He delights in us, He delights in the intricacies that He has created.
You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvellous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them! Ps 139:13-17
How much do we lose along life's journey, because of our own choices, and the choices of others?
One thing I've learnt is that abuse destroys your sense of personhood, your identity, your value, your sense of worth. You morph into the needs and desires, standards and opinions of others, in order to be loved and accepted, and are very much inclined to give up who you are, or not ever really know it in the first place. Perhaps that's why it's so important to Him to want to restore those things. Perhaps that's why there was this niggling sense that He wanted to do more.
On the middle day of our trip, my friend and I went tripping around the area, doing the tourist thing, and we returned mid-afternoon, quite tired. Jo laid down to rest and I decided to sit at the table to journal and answer messages. While I was on Facebook answering messages, I noticed something a friend had shared, a video of a performance on Britain's Got Talent. Thinking nothing of it, I clicked on the video and proceeded to watch it. I had no idea what was coming.
A man started singing this song he'd written for his little girls, called Daddy's Little Girls. I just knew the Lord was poking around, again, in a long-buried corner of my heart I wanted to ignore. I started crying and decided it was time I took myself for a long walk, again. I took some paper and a pen down to the pool, to gain some perspective.
I tried to write it all down, but I just couldn't. The memories came thick and fast. He's been slowly working on it for over 20 years so I really thought I was in a better place on it. My strong reaction actually really surprised me.
I WAS my daddy's little girl for a long time. I was his only girl and he lavished love and attention and affection on me, more than on his boys. I doted on him and adored him. But he took advantage of my trust and devotion, and when my mum moved out of their bedroom, because of his abuse, he moved in on me. Eventually, I locked him out of my bedroom and then he became verbally abusive, every opportunity he got, every time I walked into a room where he was, and played endless mind games with me. I went from being the favourite to being the object of his scorn. He became more aggressive with mum and my brothers and many ordinary days disintegrated into full-on wars, with lots of yelling and physical aggression. I lost not just my father during that time, but my sense of self, my sense of being cherished or even just loved or supported. It was all shattered and with it my trust and my ability to be a daughter.
But here, as I waited on Him in this safe place where I first became a new creation, the Lord wanted to restore it. He had more to do. I rang a friend and sobbed, but didn't really talk about it properly. Still couldn't. She prayed anyway, and we talked about other things.
I went back to the little cottage once it got dark, and thought perhaps I could talk to Jo about it, but just couldn't bring myself to unpack it.
I managed to stuff it down, again. I've become very good at stuffing over the years. But 'stuffers suffer', as another friend loves to remind me. So, we chatted about other things and played board games and I went to bed. Next day, we parted company, very thankful for the break and the place and each other's company, and I went off to visit a friend. I thought that as I drove away from that place, it was finished. But my Father was not finished. He loves us too much to leave things unfinished when it's time to heal them properly.
Fast forward to a day and a half later, and I was travelling home after a night with friends. I had about five hours of driving time in front of me. I was tired of the CDs I'd already listened to so I dug around for a fresh one. Once again, He got the better of me. I started to listen to songs I hadn't heard for years and all of a sudden His Spirit just moved in. He dug deep and healed that loss and those deep, deep wounds of Daddy's lost little girl. He replaced it all with a sense of His love and presence that I've never known, not even as that other Daddy's girl. I sobbed for hours which made it very difficult to drive, especially on unfamiliar roads, in heavy traffic, in the pouring rain. My goodness, I think the angels were driving that day!! I'm so glad my tissues were on the front seat.
That day, all that had been blocking the reality of His love and Fatherhood seemed to leave, like a flood gouging out a river bed, moving great log jams, so that a fresh flow could come in.
After several hours of letting it all go, there was a filling and a knowing that still blows my mind. And a sense of identity as His daughter, which He's been trying to show me, wanting to restore, for so very long. I'd been getting glimpses of that, but not really getting it.
I can't describe it in words. It's a knowing that is way beyond words, beyond intellectual knowledge.
......that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Eph 3:17-20
There's a fullness and a strength that I have never known, not even as daddy's little girl. I've seen it in women whose fathers were kind and affirming and strong and secure - and safe. But I've seen it missing just as much in women whose fathers were not. And it doesn't always take abuse to create these voids. It's often just because fathers are absent or just not emotionally secure or available. It must break the Father's heart that His daughters don't know who they are or whose they are.
He reminded me again of a Scripture He'd given me that first day at the pool, when I didn't want to know, when I had other things on my agenda. Now it made sense.
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace [Who imparts all blessing and favour], Who has called you to His [own] eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself complete and make you what you ought to be, establish and ground you securely, and strengthen, and settle you. 1 Pet 5:10 AMPC
After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. NASB
In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. NLT
But after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who calls you to share his eternal glory in union with Christ, will himself perfect you and give you firmness, strength, and a sure foundation. GNV
I've since read it in many versions and I understand finally that His desire for all of us is to establish us, to ground us securely, to make us what we ought to be, what He designed us to be, to empower us, to strengthen us. It's amazing how verses like this become so alive to you in the wake of an encounter like that.
I'm incredibly grateful for that place, for those people who were faithful back then to love and serve me. But more than that, I'm even more grateful to a Father who has always known me and pursued me, so that I can know Him, and His love in a way I never knew possible.
I've cried my way through this song way too many times, but its truths are starting to sink deeper than the pain, which truly is life-changing.
You're a Good, Good Father
It's who You are, it's who You are, it's who You are
And I'm loved by You
It's who I am, it's who I am, it's who I am
Oh, it's love so undeniable
I, I can hardly speak
Peace so unexplainable
I, I can hardly think
As You call me deeper still.................into love
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