A Daughter’s Worth – Week 2 / Day 4: Your Father Forgives You

Your blog today is brought to you by Memphis T and Mama T <3

Oh My!  This has been a tough topic for me to think about in my lifetime.  Growing up, my dad was, and still is a very hard worker.  He always worked his full time job, grew acres of vegetables on our farm and was active in our church.  My whole family worked around dad’s schedule.  It was rarely easy to keep up and do everything the way he needed it to be done.  When we messed up, and we did mess up, dad would go silent…until he blew up…and then he was silent for weeks at a time.  Sometimes we knew what was wrong, most of the time we didn’t though and that was hard to try to fix.

Girls have a basic need to please.  We especially need to please our fathers.  That is why it is so hard when we have messed up for us not to know how to make it better.  As a young teen I tried very hard to win my dad’s approval and to see him smile or say, “Thanks, gal”, or something.  I needed that from him.  As an older teen I began looking for approval from my uncles and wanted to have a boyfriend to care about me.  I have some really cool uncles.  I messed up a lot in the boyfriend area, but that’s another story for another day.  I have learned a lot and been so blessed with the men God placed in my life.  I got the laughs and hugs and teasing I needed in that way; but not from my dad.

This is by no means a sad story, because I love my dad very much and I know he loves me.  It could be that we are too much alike to express ourselves well, or maybe he didn’t have a good example of a relational father either.  The main thing I learned from my home life was what I wanted to do LIKE my parents raised me and the things I wanted to CHANGE when I had my own family.  Mostly I learned how to lean on my Heavenly Father when I needed that ABBA, daddy, role filled.  God never let me down.  When I messed up, I could ask Him to show me what had gone wrong, where I had gone wrong and to forgive me for my sins.  He was always faithful to forgive me; I had a harder time forgiving myself.

As I have learned to parent my daughters, I have always told them to be honest with me.  Even if it is hard to say what they have done, I would rather know what happened from them than to hear it from someone else or be surprised by the truth later.  I have made them a promise to be patient and slow to anger with my words so that they will trust me with their hearts.  I like to think that this is a lesson I learned from my Heavenly Father.

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me” (Mark 10:14), “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3) and in Matthew 19:13 we see that parents were bringing their children to Jesus so he could lay hands on them to pray for them and give them blessings.  I wanted to be that kind of mom someday.  I wanted to be the kind of mother that my kids could come to for comfort, talking, mutual respect and love and I wanted their friends to feel comfortable talking to me too.  It took breaking some bad learned parenting behaviors, but God has been faithful to bring me children and teens to love on.  He gave me a desire of my heart.

No matter what kind of earthly dad, or parents you were born with, God wants to be your FATHER.  With that comes love, guidance and, yes, discipline.  Discipline is not a bad word.  It means having self-control.  We don’t act on every whim and do what feels good, just because it feels good.  Our verse for today is:  Hebrews 10:22, “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”  God wants us to come to him and tell him what is on our hearts and minds.  Take some time today to think back to those “secret” things you have stuffed down inside your heart and tell HIM about it.  He already knows, but HE wants to hear you say it so you know you are clean.  No more guilty conscience.  No more beating yourself up about something in your past.  Just you and HIM.  God sees you through the filter of His Son, Jesus.  You look pretty good, you know.  Embrace the Father’s love.  You deserve it!

<3 Mama T (Teresa)

__________________________________________________

There is nothing so horrible or terrible that God cannot or will not forgive you for <3 God sent His one and only son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins so that we would have the opportunity to live in eternity with Him. How awesome is that?

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,

that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Have you ever did anything that you thought was so bad that you thought your parents would never forgive you for, and once you told them, they weren’t as mad as you thought they would be and things changed for the better? Well that is how God is J Satan would love to hold those old horrible things over your head, having you to think and believe that God will be angry with you for the rest of your life and never forgive you (while typing this, satan is trying to persuade me to not tell you all about what happened to me years ago because it was a very difficult time for me and my family, but it is part of who I am and it shows how God forgave me for something that I thought was so horrible at the time).  God is totally the opposite girls!! He is so loving and forgiving!!! He wants you to come to Him and repent (to tell Him that you are sorry and turn away from that thing that you were doing wrong) and live your life for Him. He is always waiting there with His big loving arms held open for you to run to Him. He desires to be there for you!

I can remember doing something that I thought was so bad. We are friends and we can be honest with each other here at GCH: Decaf. I was 20 years old, not married, working in ministry, and I got pregnant…yep, there it is…I said it, Ms. Tonya got pregnant. I felt like I had disappointed my mom and dad, my sisters, my boss, Pastor, friends…everybody, but most of all I felt like I had let God down!! I knew what God had said about getting pregnant before being married and I definitely was not married. Were the special, important people in my life disappointed in me? Yes they were. Did they ever stop loving me? No they did not!

It took me a while to heal from that time in my life. I had to really get to know who God was better than I thought I did. He wasn’t this mean old person who was going to point His finger at me and shake it and say, “Tonya, you make the biggest mistake ever and I am no longer keeping you as my daughter!” He was exactly the opposite. Our Heavenly Father loved on me! He sent people around me to comfort me, teach me more about His Word, and help me to get back on the right path of following and living a life for Him!

Remember this: When God forgives you. You are set free!!! You are free from being reminded of that thing that you did wrong and you are free to go to God whenever you need to!

When God forgives you, He forgives you and He remembers it NO More!! We are the ones who remember. God does not desire to torture us with reminding us of what we did wrong, He wants us to ask for forgiveness, turn away from that thing that were doing wrong, learn from it, and move forward. He is so forgiving!! Humans can hold grudges, God does NOT! Whatever it is that you think is so horrible that you think you cannot go to God about, think again, He wants you to come to Him! Try Him …Go to Him… Allow Him to show you who He really is! A loving Father who LOVES His daughters.. ALL of us 🙂

Let’s Pray:

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for loving us for who we are. We are so grateful to be called your daughters. Thank you for being a loving, forgiving God and for reminding us that there is nothing so bad that You will not forgive us for. Please remind your daughters Lord that You are there for them, and that You still desire to have that Father daughter relationship with them. Let them know that You are waiting. In your Son’s Jesus name I pray. Amen.

<3 Memphis T (Tonya)

___________________________________________

For the A Daughter’s Worth Bible Study, you will need the book, your Bible, pen or pencil, a highlighter and a quiet place. You can order the book right through our website from clicking the sign-up form button at the top of our webpage.

If you are interested in joining us in our GCH:decaf Teen Girls Ministry, please click the sign-up form button at the top of our webpage. Just follow the instructions on the form and hit submit. We’ll be happy to add you to one of our Online Bible Study Groups! Our new study is A Daughter’s Worth! Please email megan@girlfriendscoffeehour.com for more information

Like Be the first one who likes this post!