Part II: Wilt Thou Be Made Whole: God Becoming Father

When my husband and I married, we had one car, no phone or t.v.. We didn’t have gas for three months because it took a $150 deposit. As full-time college students, we just didn’t have that kind of money. Plus, we wanted to do this on our own – marriage meant being financially independent of your parents. For those three months, we didn’t have hot water. I learned you cannot warm enough soup pans filled with water on a stove to make a hot bath.

When we finally paid the money for the gas, we had hot water, but winter came. The guys renting the downstairs of the old house turned off their heat when they went home for Christmas. We used that soup pan filled with boiling water to pour down the toilet, to unthaw the pipes so we could flush.

“We’re going to look back on these days as the best of times,” my Forever Man said. I remember thinking that I hoped there’d be hot water and toilets that flushed in the winter ahead of us! Love and a sense of humor were the must-haves in our marriage – and this striving together to find God.

My husband graduated first, and shortly after we moved into a new apartment with a phone, a television and hot water! WooHoo! We still had just one car. After my classes, I’d pick him up for work. He says he always had to wait on me, but I remember an awful lot of waiting in the early dark winter afternoons, waiting for him to come out. During one of those long waits, I remember asking God to show me how to love him like I did when I was little.

I learned He is the God who meets me when I call out.

That’s all God was waiting for – an invitation to relationship, an invitation for Him to work with the broken places inside me. Sometime in the next year, I watched a Billy Graham crusade on t.v. My grandmother, a staunch Catholic, always watched his crusades. I watched, called the number, and rededicated my life, committing myself further.  Unlike the little girl in the closet who recognized God as someone more powerful, someone to be respected, and the need to behave in his presence, this dedication was different.

Like the knight humbling himself before his liege lord. The knight willing chooses to come under the authority of the one into whose hands he gives all he is, all he owns and all he will be. While the knight might not recognize the true cost of his pledge, he understands it to the best of his knowledge at that time. I understood him to be God, my creator. At that time, I really didn’t understand – or believe – He was Father to My Daughter. Or maybe I didn’t understand what it was to have A Good, Good Father to My Daughter.

I was ready to exchange empty pride (preservation of ego) for humbleness.  Madeline L’Engle writes in “A Circle of Quiet,” “Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.” I was ready to throw myself away in complete concentration on The One who Created me.

I know that saying it outloud to someone else was crucial, that phone call was a dying-to-self moment.

He was the God under whose Banner I wanted to live – and He made a place for me under His banner. I was under the banner, but didn’t understand – I had an out-side-looking-in, orphan mentality. I really had no concept of what it was like to be a daughter loved, valued and protected by her father – but I knew God was a good God who saw me, who heard my prayers and acted on those prayers, and who would one day judge me.

A year after that, our oldest son was born. My husband and I were baptized. St. Augustine points out that the only difference between the Christian and the Unbeliever is not the challenges we face, for we both face the same challenges. The difference is in who we face the challenge with (God with me) – and the hope and faith we carry into that challenge – because of whose we are.

I held one child in my arms, year after year — he grew — and month after month, I grieved. 48 months, 48 “No’s.” Desolation snowballed into a downward spiral that drained me physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Secondary infertility was my diagnosis: the inability to conceive after the first child. Sarah, Rebekkah, Elizabeth, Rachael, Hannah, the barren woman — they became my soul sisters. I understood their cry — and I rejoiced in their answered prayers. I sat at their feet, looking for behavior solutions in their stories. . . because God heard their cries and answered their prayers – maybe not in the plot form they wanted, but He answered them in His best way.

• Sarah and Abraham encouraged accountability in their relationship — story after story of each enabling the other’s weaknesses drove that home.
• Isaac took his problem directly to God — the only recorded time of him going directly to God was this one time, when he asked God for Rebekkah to conceive. It showed me the mighty power of a praying husband.
• Hannah unabashedly spilled her heart out in front of everyone, passionately emptying it for her God.
• Elizabeth, having grown reconciled to her barrenness, showed us how to rejoice in God’s surprises.
• Rachael cried out for a child to make her look good. Leah wanted to win her husband’s love by giving him sons — and found God’s mighty, fulfilling love. And, the barren woman’s house was filled, probably because she opened herself up to relationship and reliance on God.

I mined these stories for clues to solve my problem. Because God had not given me what I asked for, I assumed it was a conditional behavior issue. God was waiting for me to behave a certain way before He would grant my request. I was like the mouse trying to find the magic button that released the cheese — and none of the buttons I pushed released my cheese.

To compound that, I was an obsessive thinker, constantly searching for solutions. Obsessive thinking starts on the outside — can I work harder, eat healthier, study more, be skinnier, find a new theory, a new treatment — all the solutions are outside based. Outside solution failure turns the obsessive thinker inside — maybe I am not good enough, do not pray enough, believe enough, or am not important enough to God.

But God does not work like that. God does not love conditionally. I am not the mouse to his cheese. God wanted a heart connection. Those bible stories? Meaningless without a God relationship. I knew what I thought I wanted, but without relationship with my Father, I could not know what He wanted for me. I had to take my mind off the plot and seek to know the author.

“Commit your way to the Lord, and trust in him, and he will do it.” (Psalm 25: 5, New Advent Bible)

A Christian friend, who was more intimate with God at that time, advised me during a particular moment of emotional crisis, “Ask Him to take the desire away if having another child is not His will.” I had to take everything off the table, so to speak — my dream, my desire.

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)

And, I did — I asked my Father to take the desire away — if this dream was not His dream for my life. Like Abraham’s willingness to give up Isaac, I needed to be more committed to His plan for my life, than my plan, my desire, my dream. Though at that time I did not realize how much He loved me, who I really was to Him, I gave Him my heart’s desire.

And He gave it back — abundantly. Our second and third sons were born, via fertility specialists.

My God, my Shepherd, guides me on the paths I needed to take.

We were praying selflessly for someone’s healing – and we believe that something in that selfless prayer fell on us – We found ourselves expecting our fourth child, a one in a million chance, the specialists had said. Six weeks into a pregnancy we weren’t supposed to be able to have, we had a miscarriage. Our heart’s broke.

Somewhere in all this I had already forgiven my dad who had never met my boys. Forgiveness is like grieving– you cry, get angry– and then you forgive. It’s like a gift you have for someone – and, in the best case scenario – that person comes to receive it. Worst case scenario – they never come to get it. It’s only our job to give it. The receiving is up to them.  After I’d forgiven, I found I could live with the regret of what could have been.

My God, My Shepherd, teaching me to develop a heart for forgiveness.

Forgiving doesn’t heal the broken places – but it’s the first step in allowing God to fix the broken places. God had been softening the clay of my soul, readying it remake it better than before all the brokenness.

Then came Gracie. Another one-in-a-million pregnancy. Maybe it would be a girl, I thought, a chance for a part of me to be whole. During the beginning of the pregnancy, I got a call that my father, 56 years old, was dying. He wasn’t really interested in seeing me, though. I hadn’t seen him since the 1980s. I took my two youngest to visit him. He was more interested what food I could bring him. Shortly after my visit, he died – and the same week, my baby’s heart stopped beating. Her trisomy number was too low. These babies don’t usually survive to be seen – much less live inuteror four months. I didn’t find out for about two more weeks, at my check up. Because I was so far along, my doctor sent me to Nashville for a D&E. I didn’t find out for a few years what the exact nature of the procedure – and I’m glad I didn’t know. It broke my heart when I found out.

Before I left the hospital, the nurse cautioned my husband to be vigilant with me near the due date – to watch for depression, to make sure I was eating – because my body would remember what should have been.  I wonder if they tell women who are having abortions that their body will remember the due date – and it will grieve.

My God, My comforter was next to my broken-hearted self.

At my six week check up, as I was walking out, I realized I had forgotten to ask if my baby had been a boy or girl. Standing in the hallway, the nurse ruffled through my chart and said, “It’s a girl.” My heart dropped. I can still remember the feeling. Then a voice behind me said, “I have a whole, healthy girl planned for you.” The voice was so audible, I turned around to see who spoke those words to me – but no one was there. . . . no one was there. . . .

My God, My Strength stopped my heart from being crushed.

You see, I’d always wanted a girl – not because of the dresses, the tea parties, the girly girl stuff. I’d wanted a girl because I thought, well, I couldn’t be whole – what with my parents divorce – and their issues – so maybe I could have a daughter who would be whole – who would have both her mom and dad love her, be there for her, fight for her, provide security from the chaotic world, encourage her – you know – all the things the traditional family unit is designed to do – everything I saw from the outside of other families looking in, everything I was doing with my own traditional family.

Crushed is a good word to describe how I felt. I came face to face with my brokenness. Forgiveness didn’t make me whole but it had opened my soul door to allow God to come in, to take the broken pottery of my soul – and remake it better, stronger, more perfectly his plan.

God started working on this deep broken place in me. Around my due date, a little girl in the nursery wanted me to hold her the entire time. She looked what I thought our little girl would look like – white-blonde hair, except she had blue eyes, not green. When I came home, I told my husband how she looked how Gracie would have looked – and then I started crying, crying deeper than the loss of my little girl, crying all the way to the bottom of my soul toes. I’ve never cried like that before. . . it was the cry born of the soul pain of the brokenness of this daughter without a father. Gracie’s loss made me face that loss, made me realize that I had put inappropriate expectations on this little girl to heal the brokenness, to make me whole.

The next day, I called the church explaining I needed to take a break from the two year olds, and then I went to get my nails done. God shows up in the everyday ordinary. That’s where some of the most profound miracles and breakthroughs happen –  in the everyday ordinary. For some reason, I started telling the nail technician I went to church with what happened the night before.

A lady I didn’t know was sitting, waiting for her to finish with me, listening and talking, too. As I talked about what happened the night before, the crying like I’ve never cried before, inside, I kept thinking, “Stop it. Stop telling this story. You don’t know this lady; she probably thinks you’re nuts.”

But I couldn’t stop. It kept pouring out.

The stranger jumped in, asking, “Do you know what travail is?”

“Does it mean I need to be in a little white jacket and taken away for a rest?” I asked, kind of scared it did mean that.

“It’s when the Holy Spirit mourns through you. I believe the Holy Spirit was mourning through you,” she said.

The nail technician chimed in, “We’re all just Daughter’s of the King.”

Something happened at that moment, understanding unfurled. While I had always heard I was the Daughter of the King, a member of the family, I never really understood. I “logos” understood it, but I didn’t “rhema” understand it – it wasn’t alive and thriving in me.

At that moment, the knowledge that I was a Daughter of the King breathed deep into my soul – and the knowledge of it started unfurling. I left, still assured both those ladies probably thought I was nuts. . . but I left change emerging.

As I drove to the grocery store, I rhema understood who I was to the Father God who created me. It included the privilege, the protection, the value and affection  accorded to a precious, beloved daughter of the King. He wasn’t a careless, absentee, uninterested father. He was a Father who took care of His sons and daughters – who knew the big and little details of each of his kids.

My God who made himself known to me became My Father who made himself known to me.

The covering, the protection, the self-image of who I was – he was the father who would read everything I wrote, no matter the print size, the father who would provide protective covering, who would walk me through my challenges, and dismantle my fears, who would make my heart whole. . . he was the father who would. . .

As I walked into the grocery store, I started thinking about what was expected of me as a Daughter of the King – “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). In the grocery parking lot that meant those who know they’re his – and those who don’t. It means not taking offense, forgiving – and grace and love. Knowing what it’s like to live Fatherless, I wanted others to know about this Father who loves them – and what that means if you’ve never experienced that kind of love, that this Father a place for them at His table – not a place 1000 tables away – but at His table, in His house, in His heart. In his house, you have a room decorated in your style with the best view imaginable.

After we lost Gracie, I read Kenneth Hagan’s Faith Study book about speaking faith because speaking God’s word can move mountains.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” ~ Hebrews 11:1.

I believed in this whole, healthy girl God said he had for me, thinking God was going to give me a daughter.

“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” ~ Matthew 17:20

I didn’t see it, but I hoped in the words he’d given me that day. Basically, every time I prayed, I gave my Father permission to implement this promise He gave me.

I prayed, day in, day out “Thank you God for this whole healthy girl.”

I wondered every so often whether those words were a promise for a daughter or whether they were a promise about me.

When my fourth son was born, I had my answer. That “whole healthy girl” he talked about – that was me – I was the “whole, healthy girl” He planned for me.

(I want to add that my marriage improved so much at this point. Expecting my husband to be the repairer of the broken places in me [– though I don’t think I consciously realized I was doing that, I was] , was an inappropriate task for my forever man. While he is supposed to show my children and me the face of God, he is not God – and that is too huge a burden for anyone to carry.)

Happily Ever After? Right? I’m a Daughter of the KingI I know that! It’s alive in my soul! I know whose I am! The next stage of this wholeness journey was building this Father-Daughter relationship and how He filled up the broken, empty places left by my father – a divine re-design!

Part I: Wilt Thou Be Made Whole: A Broken Daughter
Part II: Wilt Thou Be Made Whole: God Becoming Father
Part III: Wilt Thou Be Made Whole: Learning to Live as Beloved Daughter
Part IV: Wilt Thou Be Made Whole: A Whole Healthy Daughter