GOD
I grew up thinking that God was looking down from heaven, arms crossed, frowning, and shaking His head in disappointment; a stark contrast between what I read in the Bible and what I was taught in Sunday School.
He’s your Heavenly Father, they said. His love is higher than the mountains, deeper than the ocean, they said. His love is unconditional, they said. You don’t have to earn it, beg for it, clean yourself up for it. Good or bad, it’s all yours, they said. My brain believed it, but my heart didn’t feel it, and I couldn’t settle for that.
I’m a sensitive, emotional human being that relies on my feelings, and if I can’t feel it, I’m paddling against the current of emptiness, frustration and confusion. And I can’t live like that. I have to feel God. I want, I need, I can’t live without knowing, believing, and feeling God in my heart.
So, I kept searching; crawling through the wreckage of my past, facing the ghosts, grieving my losses, wrapping my arms around the truth, cursing the lies and deceit of the people that said they loved me.
And there, in the midst of the wreckage, sat a shadowy figure staring into space, oblivious to the world in which he lived. My dad; in the flesh, but absent in the spirit.
Suddenly, in the crashing waves of anger and grief, I found my answer. When I finally opened my crying eyes, I saw God; smiling, arms open wide for me to come and feel His highest, deepest, unconditional love of my Heavenly Father. He was there all along; I just couldn’t feel Him. Now I do.
FAMILY
That’s where relationships are born. That’s where parents love, discipline and protect their children, make them feel safe, and teach them how to spread their wings and fly. Family is the potter; children are the clay. Either they are lovingly shaped and molded into something beautiful, or they are ruthlessly marred and disfigured for life.
RELATIONSHIPS
There’s no gentle way to put this: my family was screwed up. The most important relationships I always wanted, I learned to live without. For the sake of my own sanity, I walked away; I said enough!
I want to live a happy life. And, when I became a mom, I broke the chains of child abuse and loved my one and only child unconditionally, no strings attached. And as a result, he is a loving, caring human being, an awesome son, husband, father of four, and grandfather of nine, beautiful grandchildren.
There are no conflicts that we can’t work out. We all come together, laugh, work, and play together, because we know how important wholesome relationships are for each other’s well-being in a world that grows more stupid and evil every day.
CONCLUSION
If we want a good life with a beautiful, flourishing flower garden, we have to do everything within our power to care for it properly. Otherwise, it will dry up, dwindle and die. And that’s no life at all.
Straight From the Heart 
That is so beautifully said. I know one day when I was thinking of the father who was never a part of my life, I suddenly had the realization that I did have father in my life and always had… ‘our heavenly ‘Father’…. Diane
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Yes! A Father who will never let us down!
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