Things I learned from my Father

I have a bad relationship with my father. I love him. But is there respect? I keep having to remind myself. Don't get me wrong - I am in awe at the way my parents have stayed together despite all odds, personality-wise, financially or family-wise. They belonged to a different era than now, better because 'compatibility' was simply not reason enough. Commitment was always the bigger word - defying arithmetic ;). I appreciate it so much. It's definitely what I want to do myself. But my father was never someone who knew me. He still isn't. That seems like a shameless plug of my own post, but it's not. Trust me.

I learned that knowing from my Father. I learned that discipline comes in love not in anger. I learned that when I make a mistake and am sorry, there are tears in my Father's eyes. I learned that to go to your Father with your problems means that you get a big, fat hug first. And He holds you until you're warm again. When I had a painful operation on my toe, I was old enough to be on my own. I was 21. But the power went out that night and all through the night, my toe throbbed in just the most cry-worthy way. I'm pretty stoic. I never cried when I fell off my bike and had a compound fracture - I insisted I'd go to church first because it was why I was on my bike in the first place. But this night... I cried. Also I didn't go to bed because there was a slight breeze in the living room so I tried to sleep on the sofa. This night, my father sat behind my crouched body (I couldn't lie down because I was jumpy with the pain) and bade me lean on him, so I could sleep. And I remember thinking Wow, this feels like Abba. It was strange that it should and just for those moments, I shut my eyes against the pain and stopped crying and leaned back for more of this unusual, lovely moment. But I already knew what it felt like. God has held me so many times. The first time He held my hand on a  long journey while I was thinking about a big decision, I didn't want to join the others on the camp bus. I didn't want to speak, to break the spell. It felt like... home.

My Father also taught me that He won't give up. By this point in my life, I know that He knows that I'm gonna stumble. We've got to that stage we can roll our eyes at each other about my little mistakes and nod. Unfortunately, they are not all little. But I know and He knows I know that He's gonna pick me up again. And set me right back on my feet and get me to walk again.

I learned that He's always going to ask me what I want, and why I'm crying. Even if He knows. Which, let's face it, He usually does. He knows I want Him. And - here's the amazing thing - He lets me know He needs me and wants me. Oh, not for support or to help Him carry the water back into the house or even to be there when He's talking to other people. He uses me sometimes then. Sometimes I actually get to translate - if the other person is waiting to understand. Sometimes someone else has translated for me. Still that's not what He needs me for. He needs me. And when I crawl back onto His lap after a long day, even if I'm late, He's waiting for that cuddle. I love Him. And He actually hurts when I forget. 

These days there's been a lot of relationship advice I've needed my Father about. I wonder sometimes if He smiles indulgently. Sometimes my eyes are so blurred with tears that I can't see. Happy tears, mind you. Thinking tears, about how it should be when it does happen. Still I always hear Him. Even with my headphones on, He makes sure... I don't ever remember my Father yelling at me. He's been stern though, firm, sad, decisive... No-nonsense... But no - I don't think He's been mad at me and not in love with me - ever. He never once raised His hand or any other thing in anger.

I know from my Father's eyes that He thinks I'm pretty important. Baby, does that work wonders for my self-esteem! He's kinda that parent rooting for their kid every event. He knows what grade I make, He knows what I want to do next - yet He's not the nosy kind at all. He'll wait for me to tell Him because He knows I trust Him and He expects it. But still He just knows, y'know... Perceptive, my Dad. But when I'm ready to talk - I can just tell He so wants to listen. Of course, He has different ideas from mine. Often. But what's weird is that I talk to Him and I know that I just want to make Him proud. Then again His ideas are so much better - He's known me and the world for longer than I have ;) Sometimes I've been stupid enough to dump His idea completely and do just mine. All these hormones ;)! I've never regretted anything as much. Sometimes what people said has been more important than my Father - He knows now that I am so so sorry. It was wrong for me and it hurt Him. I wouldn't be surprised if the first caused the second. Usually everything I have wanted to do from the bottom of my heart comes from a childhood passion. That passion comes from my Dad's passion. That glow in His eyes when He talks about it. And I know that I know that I'd be good at this - because I'm getting the vision from the wisest, most intimate person I've known in all my life. My Father isn't an old fogey - He's got my name tattooed on His hand. The only tattoo that doesn't turn me aaaalll the way OFF! ;) 

I learned that all this is what Fathers do. I learned to look for these things in my father here. And to remember them. I learned that I have to keep remembering to forgive myself and everyone else because I'm nowhere near as good at it as He is. I learned that if I ever have children, I want my husband and me to love them like my Father did and will. He'll be simply awesome - as always - when they're around, if that should be a blessing I will one day have! I just know this! I learned that who I am grows in Who my family is. I learned that no one else will ever be able to define love for me in the way that my Father does.

Mary

I was reading this today and my heart leaped. Hearts leap, I think, every time there is an instinctive recognition! My heart does this for the clear voice of God, when I stop to listen; for rain and snow, for as long as I can remember; for babies; and for puppies and other little things; for missions; for ideas and stories that have been mine and I see in other people's writing... When I was 14, I remember describing this in a composition assignment as the germ of my idea having taken root and grown in someone else's imagination...

My heart leaps for many things (chocolate comes close, ladies!) It leaps for that unmistakable presence of God that comes in worship at church, in the process of cleaning out a stubborn stain on my jeans, or even when I'm singing barefoot in my classroom during planning time! That's a good expression. I admit to being a geek. I looked for something to tell me the background, the story of a Hebrew idiom, what it meant when the babe in Elizabeth's womb leaped for joy. The other place it's used in the Bible is when a woman is pregnant with twins. The story is that they definitely jostled each other and mummy knew it. The twins were going to be pretty important in history and they were fighting for their places! Leaping = strong emotion? Definitely. But I found no contextual interpretation. It is quite literal, I suspect.

Here's the background. An expectant Mary visits her cousin, Elizabeth, who is now pretty darn pregnant! Elizabeth has been waiting for motherhood for a really long time (if you know how that feels, back me up here!). There is joy in the encounter. And baby John kinda skips a little when the ladies are saying hello. He knew who he was meeting. Not his pregnant aunt, but someone else. Inside that cocoon of his mother's womb, he recognises the Spirit of God, now made flesh... and John's giving a little gasp and a stutter and screaming in his head 'There he is! That's him!' and wants to get out. Like your heart kinda flips over and knocks on your chest to reach out to the one you love.

Well, so here I was, my heart leaping, my head thinking about the beautiful account of the resurrection by this amazing blogger and trying to make connections. And I was struck by how another Mary's heart must have leaped on that Sabbath day.

Mary was in that dreadful waiting place with all the others when we just don't know. We think we're facing irrevocable loss. Something as final as we believe death is. Most of us haven't taken God seriously when he said he was going to raise up that temple in 3 days, anyway. We've become used to interpreting statements outside God's vision, inside the most-likely box. Some of us haven't even heard that there is more to the story. We think we've just read the last chapter and we've lost. Some of us think there might be because there is hope but it comes and goes. I know I have to hold on to it with every last ounce of strength some days. I know you all have those days. So we're... what is that word? Oh, 'coping'.

Mary's there (I'm assuming she's also the woman caught in adultery). And then there is a 'But God' moment. Mary sees him and knows in that moment, that Jesus lives.

Still that isn't what made my heart leap today. Those moments when I recognise my God, when I look and find that I'm looking into His eyes - they're beautiful. Heart-stoppingly, undeniably beautiful. And you can't but smile or grin or laugh in joy. But what made my heart leap was thinking about what made Mary's heart leap.

This - Jesus said to her, "Mary!" (John 20: 16)

He knows my name. He knows me. He knows that I sinned and pushed my limits so much that I was the black sheep of my little Magdalene community. The one that nobody really talked about at weddings and feasts, the one that everyone whispered about. He saw my demons. He cast them out. He knows. 


But He also knows just how very, very much I love Him. Because He was looking into my eyes as I faced death, and He was willing me to live. He was there daring everyone else to so much as touch me before He cold reach out and save me. And He saw the light change in my eyes, when I felt it and knew I would never be the same again. And with that one word, He turns my life around. Again. Mary. Just the sound of his voice.

And that's what really amazes me. Love so big that it hurts. That He died for me. That He knows me inside out, better than I know myself, and loves me. I am constantly learning about this God who loves me.  Despite my pastor who keeps telling us more about who God is every meeting, and God Himself who reveals more every day, I will never fully know Him because He's infinite God. But thank God that I do know Him. And this vast, this infinite, endless God with no limits, this Man who simply died and rose again because death had not a finger's hold on him... this God is my God. And this God knows me. Little, insignificant me. And because of that, I am who I am. I have my identity in Him. I am the person He made and loves and I'm growing into who He wants me to be.

And I still can't get my head around this - He knows me intimately. And when I don't see Him because I've forgotten to look, He's gonna call my name.

Dosais and other things

When somewhere between your stomach and your throat, it feels like some internal organ is being rolled up into the kind of dosai your mum makes when you haven't got time for a plate with chutney on it... you assume, without any respect to physiological facts, that it's your heart. And you sort of know which specific, inexplicable things might have that effect.

I have a list - somewhere on Facebook. But I'm blogging now about something that is not on that list. Not in detail anyway. Children.

This is not a long blog; this is an exercise to help me remember if I should look at this again in some distant future. There's something about adopting children that has that sit-up-on-the-end-of-your-seat-take-quick-shallow-breaths effect, I think. I try not to grin and I try not to cry. This might be why I'm writing, because something has to come out somewhere. Recently when I thought I might be at a loose end with my life, I was thinking about social work or missions... They aren't different except politically. If Christ lives in you, He goes with you into whatever grimy context you choose to enter. And whether you preach or don't, Christ still calls you to be His ambassador in an Isaiah 61 kind of way. No? But I noticed I was choosing the mission based on where I could serve children or young people.

My parents tried to adopt a child. Although I had prayed before for a sister, I remember praying at the time not for a younger sister but just to be able to adopt. God, even if you don't allow us to open our family just now, please please please let me able to adopt children when I'm older. Lots of them.

Weird. But my picture is so beautiful, I don't want to let it go. I am single. My parental units might be too old to take on the challenge of providing a family from scratch to wide-eyed, little strangers. I see how all this sounds strange. But humour me and think about it. Socio-economics, ethnicity and history would not give them a 'family-ness'. But it would be. Sort of like God's church.

Ecce, Dominus

I'm starting afresh. Not life - I mean, I do that pretty frequently so it doesn't deserve an announcement... ; ) but this blog is a second attempt. One in which I will stick more closely to my own rules for blogging.

My blogging may still be a three-cornered conversation but -

I will not seek people I know (i.e. friends or family INR) to read this blog. If they find it, they find it... I'm depending on this policy as a sort of filter : P (heh!)

I will have no deadlines on blogging. It's an exercise for the soul - but part of a larger training routine! So some days I suspect it will be blogging. Other days it could just as well be music or listening... really listening.

Because through all of this, you have one of those precious, not-so-rare moments when he looks at you, in your muddy clothes and grimy face and messed-up hair - and he simply does a double-take and goes: WOW.

This morning I shared the word - on the God who is the resurrection. We studied its centrality to history and our lives. : ) One of the things we came up with was that God didn't just design you before you were born and say it was good. And then 'rest on the Sabbath'. He gets a good look at me pretty much every sordid day - and his reaction still is: You are so gorgeous.

You see, I'm not just in love with a Man who loved me so much he died for me. I'm in love with a God who did just that and lives so we can belong everyday. And lives so my foolishly inept attempts at loving back are made whole by his love. So that my extensive creativity at being able to fail will never keep him from me.

And in that 'WOW' moment, I know my sin is gone. And I know He's alive.

I guess that's what my blogging is for. I'm happy to have those 'WOW' moments alone or in community. I know there will be times I long for more readership. But I don't think I know how to get it, and I'm not going to try. But maybe, maybe there will be some times together when we look at him and at each other... and say Ecce, Dominus... and be lost in his beauty. And all of a sudden, the father will turn around and pick up his child and say: You, you are beautiful!

Maybe you and I can share just one moment like that. One laughing moment when we know he's alive because his beauty is in us.

Happy Valentine's Day!