He hasn’t been ‘daddy’ since I was quite young, but I will still always be a daddy’s girl.
He chose me … not really knowing who I would become, the choices I would make, or even if I would chose to love him back … that is father love that parallels the love offered to us all, through Christ, in our God.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” 1 John 3:1
God, the father to all, the father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5) will love us when there is an earthly absence of a father … of a good father. God is a father who loves with an unconditional love. He can fill the void that some feel on this day of celebration of the love of a father … the void of who we were because of a father’s love.
A few months ago I wrote of the grief of loss as not only that they are gone, but so is the part of you that was loved uniquely by them. It is the loss of a person, a relationship, a part of who you have always been … with them, in them, through their eyes.
I have always been his daughter … cared and sacrificed for, taught about life and living, chosen and loved as his own. It is hard to explain how it feels to have always known that you are so loved, to have been confident that there is no one and nothing that could ever change that love … not driving the car in the ditch, not even moving to the other side of the country.
Today I will feel it … the absence of it all … his presence, his voice, his acceptance, his unconditional, chosen love. The void leaves me aching with memories and missed opportunities.
Most of all, today I will miss who I was in his eyes, in his presence.
I was his daughter …
Though I am loved beautifully by my husband and kids, my mom and others who I hold dearly, today I remember, with thanks, the man who loved me enough to call me his own …
Today …
I ache for who I was in the eyes and heart of my dad …
every part of my life changed because of his love …
and every part of me is lonely for him, for my identity in and through him.
I am still just a dad’s girl and I miss him so.
itsawonderfilledlife 