The Father-Face of God

I like eating peanut butter toast with Daddy. He sits on a big chair and I sit on a big chair; that is, on a telephone book on a big chair so I can reach the plate. He bits into His half and I listen to the warm crust crunching in his mouth, curiously watching breadcrumbs fall from lips to golden beard; happy sprinkles across a happy face, like wheat chaff blowing across an untamed landscape. He sneezes and I giggle, squirming off of the telephone book and onto the table to brush the crumbs off His face. I like the feel of his whiskers tickling my hand, playfully inviting me to join the twirling chaff in a prairie dance across the wide-open palm of his hand. I made you something Daddy, I whisper in His ear then scramble to the ground. His eyes follow my pink and yellow socks, up and then down the stairs, pretending not to notice the hand-painted pot, barely hidden behind my body. It’s for You. He takes hold of the offering, smiling softly. Spinning it around for inspection, my little heart wraps itself tighter and tighter around His warm, calloused finger as it traces the painted hills rolling over the cool ceramic. He catches my awed gaze, shy with unexpressed affection, and, laughing out loud, lifts me up and onto His lap. Pressing my head into His chest, I rest. In a field of wildflowers, face to the sun, inhaling sweet fragrance, I rest. My breath slows to match the strong and steady beat of His heart, the life of the earth pounding beneath my lying body, the full, pressing, pulsing persuasion of His chest beneath my head. I look up to the dark lines of His face, tracing the wrinkles around His smile with my thumbs. His fingers dance around my freckles. I ask, What are you doing? He says, I’m memorizing them. Each and every one.


Reading between the lines: I am a twenty-one year old woman. I use that word liberally. But, despite my shortcomings, weaknesses, and childish enthusiasm, I am a woman, by definition and design, by purpose and destiny, in spirit and in flesh.

Just this year God gave me a gift that transformed the very core of my womanhood: the revelation that I am a daughter of the Most High King, a princess in the Land of the Living God, a rose in His garden, the delight of His heart. I am Amy, His beloved one.

This realization alone has lifted me out of the hollow and fruitless pit of childish pursuits and into the spirit of daughter-ship by which I cry out “Abba, Father!” into my pink pillow late at night, and by which I now take a stand, by grace, in my role as a woman. The sweet irony of a maturing relationship with the Father, however, is that it demands self-reduction, even to the point of infancy all over again. Sweetly dependent. Sweetly spoon-fed and rocked to sleep in Daddy’s arms.

When I approach the throne of grace in prayer, I see a small baby safely held and comfortably molded to the palm of God’s hand. That baby is me. And the warm curvature of His hand is my home. When I am clinging fast and hard to His fingers, seeking all I need and desire in the rich, bottomless treasure that is the man Christ Jesus, the abundance of His heart’s love rains down on this empty vessel, satisfying all thirsts of my flesh and hungers of my heart. Hungry no more, I am confidant to stand in my womanhood, because this woman has a Father looking after her, leading her, loving her, protecting her. And He is a good Dad. Always good.

Learning to trust a father isn’t always as simple as it was designed to be. The world wounds, and the enemy delights in driving a poisonous stake between father-daughter love. I have no power to heal those burns or to restore another’s ability to trust. But I can tell you that every woman, whether tip-toeing or stomping her way across the face of the earth, belongs in His nurturing hold just the same. My failures and insecurities have power to burn my flesh and deaden my spirit only when I run, crawl, jump, or whatever form of abandonment I choose, out of His arms and into my own empty strength, leaking and depleted. I was not made to stand on my own, no matter what feminist pseudo-power mentality momentarily poisons my mind, challenging the righteousness of my child-like dependence on Dad. I, a woman, was made to be a child. His baby. For when I am weak, I am strong. Only in this place of mind and state of heart am I free to be a woman warrior for the King. Only then am I liberated by love to pour my own gifts, no matter how insufficient or silly, onto his feet. Only then can I enjoy His hugs and kisses, and our daddy-daughter dates; just time and Him. Toast or no toast.

I was made to be loved by Him! Thank God I have a Father who is not only able and willing to love a sinner like myself, but extraordinarily desirous of my own heart’s affections towards Him by some unmerited, holy miracle. I am His beauty. I am His rose. It is a good thing to be.