An Abundant Life - The Inheritance Of Our Father

I am writing much later than I usually do. I had planned a completely different topic for today, but as the saying goes, "Uno propone y Dios dispone" - or in a rough translation, "A person makes plans and God puts his or her steps in order" - and at some point last night, I started to get the message loud and clear that I needed to talk about Father's Day today. Because so many people have so many different experiences of what their relationships with their fathers are, I will not talk about an individual's experience of their father except to talk a bit about my own. Each one of us has our own understanding of what a father is, based on our life experience, and sometimes what we wish were different or more or better. Some people grow up with absent fathers, some people have fathers who pass away when they are young. Some people know their fathers, some people don't. If you have an ideal relationship with your father, then God bless you both on this day. For those who may be wishing that this day would go away or who wish that they had that ideal relationship, God has a special blessing for you. God's promise is to be the father to the fatherless, and I have found that all of God's promises are true. My own father died unexpectedly in 1998, far too young for a man of his health and strength, but after I was born again I started to understand that even when he was alive, it was God who was helping him to be the good things that he was in my life, and helping me with everything else that my own father was unable to do. After I was born again, I began to understand the care of our Father in Heaven, and to know in a very deep way that all along, no matter who it seemed was providing for me, it was God who was my Provider, and that I could truly trust the words of the Apostle Peter when he said, "Cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you" - 1 Peter 5:7.

My father taught me many things, and I find that every day there is something that I am learning or unlearning that he taught me. I'm learning to keep the best and let go of the rest, and to love those things that are lovable, and forgive and release those that are not. I'm learning to celebrate the greatness of my father, and appreciate the gifts that I inherited from him. And I'm learning to take hold of the inheritance that our Father in Heaven has given to all of us, to walk in truth and love, in peace and in joy, and to know that no matter what comes I will be provided for.

Here are some photographs of my father at different times in his life. Today when I put them together, I saw myself in him so strongly. It was a wonderful feeling to know that the good things that he was can live on in me.

Happy Father's Day!

Blessings,

Jannie Susan