Knowing God as Your Father

It was a hot summer evening in London, 1990. I was 16-years-old. My friend and I were visiting a great church one Sunday night. There was great teaching, great worship; I loved it. But the real reason I went there so willingly was to see the drummer. To my 16-year-old heart, this guy was absolutely gorgeous. He didn’t know me, had never spoken to me – but if he did, he would realize we were meant for each other, and that I was his destiny. So I set about doing what I could to gain his attention, his affection, and being a young woman of vision and focus - his surname. I was dressed to kill and carried my secret weapon of choice, a little lip gloss. I had my friend at my side for moral support. I didn’t want to sit on the front row, because that would look desperate, so we sat on the second.

We sang and danced our hearts out, as I schemed to find ways to make eye contact with the drummer and dazzle him with my smile and vocal runs. The service was great (did I mention that the worship was ah-mazing?), and the preaching would have been memorable if I had actually been listening, instead plotting the next step of my mission. Then, as the gathering approached its end, someone stepped forward to share a prophetic word they’d received:

"There’s a young woman here tonight who doesn’t know God as her Father. She has never known her earthly father, and she feels like an orphan. She’s always felt like this. But God wants her to know that He is her Daddy."

What do you do when God reads your life, knows your heart and your longings, and in a single moment, speaks them out loud through a complete stranger? What can you do when time stands still, when your soul explodes in anguish and loss, and there is no time to be self-conscious or guarded, no time to reason it away? There is no split second; there is just all your life caught up in the now. It was no big secret; my father had left many years ago. There was very little communication and I’d only met him twice. There wasn’t a big story to tell, because there was so little story to it. It was just the way it was. Until now, when everything I’d fought so hard to not feel…was here. Now all I felt was pain. I started shaking and sobbing loudly. I heard a voice crying, "I want my daddy. I want my daddy." Then, “I want a daddy”. I realized it was me.

Uncomfortable onlookers might have thought this was just an attention-seeking teenager wanting to be noticed. They were right: I’d wanted to be noticed by God. I wanted his attention. I wondered if He knew the loss I felt. I’d wondered if that hole in my identity mattered, if my restlessness, that source of all kinds of unpredictable behavior mattered. Now I knew it did. Now I knew He knew me. So I wailed as though it was just God and me in the room.

As is often the case in these scenarios, when you have a howler in the congregation, the worship band struck up a gentle ministry song to "cover" what was happening. (Note to worship leaders: when you choose a song that captures exactly what a person feels, you can only expect them to cry harder. Perhaps try something with contrast or an unusual instrument like a didgeridoo or a giant tuba. I totally would have stopped.) The wailing continued until I became that girl. You know, the one that leaders guide to quieter, soundproofed sections of the church building to continue a deep healing work and to prevent the rest of the congregation’s ears from bleeding.

By now, I only had two thoughts:

1. I want a daddy.
2. That boy will never like me now.

After sobbing my way through another box of tissues, I looked up to see an older couple, the pastor and his wife. I remember their faces; the kindness in their eyes disoriented me. I could see they didn’t judge the sobbing 16-year-old mess in front of them. And because they were strangers, and frankly because after my volcanic eruption I had nothing left to lose, I told them everything. They listened to me, which for me was amazing in itself. They gave me a gift of time. Such love… as they prayed for me, I felt as though a warm blanket wrapped itself around me. In place of the constant turmoil, I was overcome by peace.

I was about to go, but I still had one question:

"So how am I supposed to understand that not only is God my Father, but that that’s a good thing?"

He smiled, "You don’t need to worry about that. You see, because God’s your father, it’s His responsibility to get that through to you."

I didn’t get the drummer guy. (Because, seriously, what guy in his right mind is going to find the weeping-wailing-snotty-screaming-not-that-appropriately-dressed-and-taken-to-another-room-because-she-is-so-disruptive type of girl attractive?) But I did get a daddy. Seven years after meeting Jesus, I met God the Father. I discovered that He knew me, and loved me.

And the process of healing and redemption began.