free to forgive

It's not about loving him because he's your dad or your father, or because he's your husband or your best friend. Or loving her because she's your momma or your mother, or your sister {who you may not even know}.

Love is a choice; an action.

It's realizing that he's worth loving because he was worth creating. It's realizing there's this big, ginormous Purpose living inside of him, and her, and you.

I'm astounded at this today. This Truth sets me *free*...to love my father because he was worth being created--not because he's my father.

This is freeing because he hasn't been my dad.

He wasn't there for me when I fell off my bike and skinned my knee.
He wasn't there for me when the boy's hurt my heart.
He wasn't there when I learned how to live bruised from choices--
He didn't even know about those choices.

My father didn't walk me down the aisle at my wedding,
and he wasn't there when my son was born.

At some point my father chose to move away from me and move on. 

Yet, the Truth is that my Father knew what He was doing when he chose this man as my father.

For so long I lived wrapped up in the *should* of loving him and haven't felt love toward him--I didn't have a reason. He doesn't really know me and I don't really know him. Where would we begin with all these miles and years between us?

Still...my heart tugs and pulls toward this man. 
And it's His Spirit who speaks to my heart, nudging me to choose love.

I'm really, truly beginning to See that this man--my father--has issues, too.

My father hurts.
He cries.
He aches inside.
He waddles in his beliefs and in his trust of God.
He wonders.
He wails.
He tries too hard, sometimes.
He gets mixed up.
He feels lonely.
He feels like a failure, sometimes.
He feels shame.

Like me, my father also needs Grace to live Free.

I find freedom when I cling to Truth that God placed us each in each other's life in the most intimate of ways, *For. Purpose.* .

This man met my mother and together they became my parents. Served up with the role to guide and nurture me at such a young age and lacking in maturity, God stood in the gap for them. Their relationship dissolved in hurt and I became intertwined among those feelings.

God still knew what He was doing--even in my parents weakness'.

Both of them continued their own story and I wasn't everything.
They began to live for more than me.

I began to live for more than them. 

I wondered for years why my father *gave up* on me.
Why did he move away?
Why did he choose another path that seemed to detach from mine?

Now I See that my father was created for more than me.
He is following what he believes his calling is, for Today.

In the process of living, our hearts haven't abandoned each other. Thoughts of each other still surface and love is still between us. And the thoughts we have of each other--the love--it was placed there by God, alone. In maturing we now live for Him alone, not each other.

It's a choice to respond to the promptings of love placed inside of us. 

When pain darkens the door of our heart and we're reminded of the ashes that remain from something that once was or could be, it's hard to See beauty. It's hard to seize it and rest in it. But when we do, we catch a glimpse of perfect love inside of us--and we begin to understand the wonder of His Amazing Grace.

I chased after forgiveness in the process of growing up, always trying to perfectly forgive--believing it would change everything. I didn't *know* forgiveness Then, like I know it Today, and hopefully Tomorrow I'll know it even more. And it's true, it does change Every. Thing.

What I know Today is that God loves us just as we are, and by choosing to forgive I am wrapping my arms around Grace who says You matter...no matter what.

This *choosing* love is my worship.
And my father's choosing to move on in his story is his worship.

What freedom we have!



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