Mmmm ...

"Keep me as the daughter of Your eye. Hide me in the shadow of Your wings." -Psalm 17:8 I cannot lie when I say that this brings me to tears ... honestly. I was writing a letter to a dear friend of mine today and I wanted to include a verse ... something relevant. My thoughts first went to the page my bible naturally fell open to the other day (haha, very spiritual), and these words from psalm 17 jumped off the page. There is something so tender about this. I have observed many fathers and daughters in these 21 years I have lived and I am one myself (a daughter, that is). And there is something so unequivocal to the way a father looks at his daughter ... easily seen when no one else is looking. : ) To him, she is perfect, she has a purity that is incapable of being stained. Given, I have also seen the opposite of this in caring for the daughters of many whose dads reject them brutally ... but there is a still a longing for those eyes -- the eyes whose center is you. I needed to be reminded of that today, that my Heavenly Father actually wants me. I needed to be reminded of this vast love that will never let me go. There have been times when, as a daughter to my Heavenly Father, I feel painfully indignant to Him. It's as if we are sitting on the couch, saying nothing, my arms crossed and my eyebrows furrowed in anger ... and all He wants to do is talk. And here I am, not talking, because I'm afraid. Afraid of something else being taken away, afraid of discipline. But still He waits ... and another friend once told me (one whom I respect beyond words) that when all we expect is for Him to take something away, He just wants to give. Simple concept, but oh ... to live it. Mmmm ... I'm learning. In a painfully slow fashion, but learning. I hope that whoever reads this will know they are kept and loved. May we hide and abide in the shadow of His wings.