I will never forget his words. I had met with him for an hour a week over the course of a couple months. I’m not sure what he was writing on his note pad but, for as much as I was beating myself up, I’m sure the word masochist was on there somewhere.  

I had so many emotions vying for attention that I couldn’t readily identify any of them. But it was as plain as day to the counselor what I was dealing with—or, more accurately, not dealing with. It wasn’t just that I was disheartened by a pervading sense of shame. To paraphrase an old country song, shame done tore out my heart and stomped that sucker flat.

I felt as if I didn’t matter to anyone—God included. Hard as I tried, I just couldn’t measure up.  If I wasn’t good enough to a father who was under the influence of alcohol much of my childhood, I certainly couldn’t be good enough to a perfect, all-seeing, all-knowing Heavenly Father.

My answer was to try harder. To pray more. To read the Bible more. To go to church more.

The result was more failure. More anxiety. More shame.

Once I completed my self-portrait in the counselor’s office, he told me he had an idea of what I needed to do. Being a “doer” this was music to my ears. Did he want me to read a book on how to please God? Attend a “Ten Things To Do To Make God Love You” Conference? Memorize a list of Scripture passages that outline God’s expectations of His children?

I must admit I was taken aback by his suggestion. He simply said, “Go away and wallow in God’s grace.”

Huh?

He explained, “You already know all there is to know about God’s grace. You need to experience it. So go away for at least a week to a place where you can spend time with Him. I don’t want you watching TV. I don’t want you reading the newspaper. I want you to leave all your self-help books and tapes at home. In fact, leave your Bible at home. I just want you to wallow in the Father’s grace.”

The word wallow to me had negative connotations. It immediately brought two things to mind: the phrase, “wallow in self-pity,” and the image of a pig sprawled out in the mud, neither of which I thought would prove particularly helpful. But the dictionary definition of the word wallow is: to spend time experiencing or enjoying something without making any effort to change your situation, feelings, etc.

In other words, wallowing was about being, not doing.

I followed my counselor’s advice. (I told you I'm a doer.) I went away and wallowed. And wallowed. And wallowed some more. Without making an effort to change, I was forever changed. For the first time in my life, I stopped trying to prove that I had worth. I stopped doing and allowed myself to simply be. After a lifetime of trying to find out more about God, I finally found God. 

That is the week I discovered a Father who values me, not for what I do, but for who I am. A Father whose love for me is not based on a performance chart.  A Father who assured me--and continues to assure me every day--that I matter deeply.  

Christianity is not so much our pursuing God as God pursuing us. Our Heavenly Father's love for us is so inexhaustible that He seeks after us every single time we stray from Him. And the moment we turn back to Him, all of heaven bursts into thunderous applause. 

When God says, "You can do it," fear whispers, No, you can’t."

When God says, "I will give you strength," fear whispers, "God’s not even there."

When God says, "Take a step of faith," fear whispers, "Run away."

Whenever we hear the voice of fear, we can be certain it does not belong to God. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:10, NKJV). 

A sound mind is a disciplined mind; a mind that is focused solely on God and His truth. A sound mind is not distracted by worry and fear. A sound mind is firmly convinced that God is worthy of our trust no matter what circumstances we may face. 

God is not honored by shaky knees and sweaty palms. When we walk in His strength, we can boldly face the challenges of life with the tools He has given us: power, love, and a sound mind.

My God is stronger than my strongest foe. He is bigger than my biggest failure. He is greater than my greatest fear. There is nothing that the two of us together can't handle.

There are three things I am most thankful for on Father's Day:

1. I'm thankful for the gift of sobriety. A holiday that for years brought ambivalence and anxiety became a day of genuine celebration when God graciously delivered my dad from alcoholism when I was in my 20's. I was blessed to have a restored relationship with my father before he passed away. I was granted the opportunity to get to know him for who he really was, apart from alcohol. While I can never fully erase the painful memories, my first thoughts now of my father are of his kindness, compassion, and gentleness. I am especially grateful because so many stories like mine do not have a happy ending.

2. I'm thankful for the privilege of being a father. I know I've made my share of mistakes. There have been many times when I wished I could have a "do over." I've had to learn (and am still learning) what it means to be a father as I've gone along. But, despite my failures and inadequacies, I have three great kids who make me proud. They may question why I've reacted in situations that merely caused for a response, but I trust they will never question that I love them with every ounce of my being.

3. I'm thankful for the revelation that God is my Father. The Bible clearly portrays God as a father. I've known God as our Father from the time I was a kid. I've called Him Father ever since I began to pray. But it's only been recently that I've discovered Him as my Father. As I sought healing for the father wounds inflicted in childhood, yet still causing hurt in my adult life, He tenderly took me up into His lap and helped me to experience in my soul the biblical truths I knew in my head:

• That I am His beloved child.
  

• That He loves me with a steadfast love.
  

• That nothing can ever separate me from His love.
  

• That He will never reject me--even when it seemed my earthly father had.
  

• That I mean so much to Him that my name is engraved on His hand.
  

• That He thinks I am worth dying for.

So happy Father's Day to me. And to my two fathers in heaven. 

Of all the things that could be said about me after I'm gone, the most gratifying would be, "He was a good dad."

What makes my Heavenly Father's love for me so astounding is that He is able to look beyond my faults and see my need. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I could love like that.

I have been an avid, slightly obsessed baseball fan my entire life. My sixth grade English teacher once told my mom that even though I didn’t know or care what a dangling participle was she was quite sure that on any given day I would know Pete Rose’s batting average. My contention was you have to know what’s most important in life.

Baseball has always been one of my greatest loves. I've enjoyed playing it, watching it, and, in the long winter months, reading about it. 

Yet, I have no recollection of my dad ever playing catch with me in the front yard. He never asked which player’s baseball cards were in the pack I bought that day at the Ken Ridge Drug Store. When I played with my town softball team as a kid and looked into the stands of cheering parents, my father was always absent. I will forever be grateful that my dad was eventually delivered from alcoholism. I was blessed to have a deep relationship with him when I was an adult. Yet, alcohol stole him away from me when I was a boy. 

As a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan, I remember how, in the late sixties, the Minnesota Twins gave the Sox fits. The star of the Twins in those days was a pudgy guy who hit some long home runs, especially against pitchers who wore White Sox uniforms. He wore number 3. He had a great baseball name: Harmon Killebrew.

When Killebrew passed away a couple years ago, I came across a wonderful quote from him. He said, “My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard.  Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass.’ ‘We’re not raising grass,’ Dad would reply. ‘We’re raising boys.’”

A rich man, Harmon Killebrew. No matter how much the Twins paid him, he was a rich man.

But I am too. I may not have had an earthly father who was actively involved in my life when I was a kid. But, as an adult, I have discovered that I have a Heavenly Father who is deeply invested in all that matters to me. He sincerely wants me to do well. He is enthusiastically interested in the things I’m passionate about. And whether I hit a home run or strike out swinging, He is in the stands cheering for me, beaming from ear to ear, shouting 'You're number one!," just because I’m His son.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!  1 John 3:1, NIV.

Why is it that the memories we most need to rid our minds of are the ones we seem to cling to for dear life? Most times, it's simply because we choose to hang on to them. If we refuse to let go of hurts from the past we are choosing to let them affect our present and shape our future. 

C.S. Lewis said it well: "Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing the monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward."

Of all of God’s attributes, perhaps the greatest--and, to me, the most comforting--is the fact that He never changes. Living in a world of constant change makes it difficult for us to wrap our brains around the fact that God never changes. But God is immutable, which means that He is not only unchanging, He is unchangeable.

How does understanding that characteristic of our Heavenly Father give us comfort? Because we can depend on someone who never changes. We can trust someone who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We can believe with all our hearts in someone who will never go back on his word.

God tells us over and over again in His Word that He loves His children. That His love is everlasting. That nothing can separate us from it. He not only will not stop loving us, He can not stop loving us.  

In a world of instability--where love can be pulled out from under us at any time and for any reason, where people close to us cannot be trusted, where sometimes even our own fathers forsake us--it's reassuring to know that our Heavenly Father is always the same. He loves us and nothing will ever change that.