The Father's Love

Since February God has been showing me about the lenses I see him through. I see God and his characteristics in the same light as my earthly father, whom by the way I love very much and he is a wonderful man. These lenses create a lot of weirdness and I often times feel like I am never good enough or I just don't meet up to his expectations and that I am always a disappointment to God the Father. That is how I feel most of the time. So over the last few months there have been glimpses of the Father's love and the sermon that Pastor Mike preached was really awesome and a lot of the things that he said were so good to hear. So I have been trying to trudge through this thing and I have been learning about my earthly father too and about myself and it is all a really good process. Today was also a part of the process. My dad is in the hospital right now and has been in and out since April because of problems with his Pancreas and with his Gallbladder. Yesterday he had his surgery, which is a huge relief by the way. So I spent some time with the Lord today before I went to the hospital to see him, and I was praying for a better understanding of the Father's love. I want to know what it is like to be loved by a father who thinks that I am just it. I prayed that God would send me someone fatherly that would love me like a father loves me. So I went to the hospital after this, and my dad was still very very out of it because of his medicine and after just having a big surgery yesterday. When my dad is out of it like this he is very vulnerable and will say things that I believe come from what he is feeling inside, I don't think he would normally say them with this innocence (without pride or anything getting in the way). So I sit with him and he's nodding off and I decide I would rather leave and let him sleep. So I tell him this, "Dad, I'm going to go so you can rest." And he looks at me and says, "I hate that I am always pushing you away." He is almost crying when he says this which doesn't happen very much. He didn't want me to go. So I told him that I would stay even if he was sleeping. All throughout this hour or so visit he went in and out of sleep but he would tell me that he loves me more than I know. He would tell me that the reason he had to have so many heart surgeries was because there is not enough room in his heart for all the love he has for me and Harry and my mom. I kept telling him that I loved him too. It was such a blessing at the time, but I didn't realize it till hours later when I was retelling this story to someone and they said to me, "So you prayed for someone to love you like a father does and God sent you your father."