I struggle, I really do, with all those passages in the Bible about a Heavenly Father. It's not that I see fathers as bad in general (though mine was particularly wretched) or that I see God through a tainted lens because of my experience, rather it is that I just don't know how to relate to earthly parents, let alone a Heavenly one. When you'd rather go hungry than ask your mother for lunch money because you are terrified of her reaction, it really isn't that easy to jump to 'ask and it will be given.' I know in my head that it is ridiculous, but most of the time my heart and instincts are those of an abused and neglected child who doesn't belong to anyone or anywhere, who nobody wants and the only parental attention it knows is anger or fear. Then to hear Jesus say, that we as (evil) earthly parents withhold nothing good from our own children, how much more so will God bless His children.
I used to envy the kids in foster care, at least they got their basic needs met without fear and they didn't necessarily have to feel as a kid ought towards his biological parents to those caring for them. But there are other passages, besides those portraying a Heavenly Father. We also see that we are spiritual orphans, lost sheep, wayward children...messed up, broken, wretched. Now to that I can relate, and still, He would call me child, ME, who knows father and mother yet had neither, me, who hated herself for all those years because her parents wouldn't or couldn't. Me, the nameless, the overlooked, the poor in spirit. I get to inherit the earth?! It's a regular fairytale, written before the foundations of the earth were laid. Where do you think they got the idea in the first place? I guess I'd better get used to living in a fairytale then, now where did I leave that tiara?
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