Experiencing Father’s Embrace

We’ve been reading the book Experiencing Father’s Embrace by Jack Frost, a minister who does a lot of family type stuff in one of the Carolinas. The message of the book has basically been the importance of understanding how our perceptions and experiences of our relationships with our earthly fathers affect the ways we perceive our Heavenly Father God. And, that our perception of God directly affects how well we can enter into intimate relationships with our families, friends, everyone basically. So if God seems to be so far away or so hard that an intimate relationship with him doesn’t seem attainable, that will in effect come to show in how much we are able to trust and invest in our relationships with those around us. It goes into a lot of situations depicting how various relationship issues that are common with children and their fathers find their ways into our imagined idea of who Father God is. (Interestingly enough, in another class the idea was presented that our relationships with our siblings influence our interaction and understanding of Jesus, and our experience with our mother’s influence our acceptance and understanding of the Holy Spirit.)

So it’s not just saying, if you had a bad father, you won’t think God is good. The levels are so much deeper. If your dad made a lot of promises with good faith to keep them, but wasn’t able to keep them all, it may be hard to trust God to meet all your needs. If your dad seemed to only be able to show love for you when you did something that pleased him, you may feel like God is only truly happy with you when you are doing things to serve him. And, even if you did have the best dad every who did everything right, no dad is as good or as loving as Father God, and it’s just good to recognize the importance of taking a look at how we perceive God, because maybe there are some things that we put on him that aren’t a part of who he is. And I think if we ask him, he tells us what those things are. He’s in a good mood, and he loves us just the same all the time, so much. He is a good God, with good intentions and good gifts. He’s not angry. He’s so full of love.

So, the book was pretty good, a little repetitive, but better than the other books we’ve read so far (if anyone wants to read it, send me and email and I can mail it to you, well, to one person at least. So you have to read it if you’re the one who gets it!)
The parts I liked best were actually the moments he talked about the healing that came to his marriage. In the last pages he talked about how he saw his lack of intimacy (constantly felt like he had to prove himself to God, work, work, work, build walls to keep from getting hurt because of previous rejection and pain, common life problems I think.) was ultimately affecting his marriage, and how thing so drastically changed after he came to experience and accept the love of God in his life—that everything changed. That was only like, a tiny tangent of the book, but, it just says to me that there are so many big huge life problems that just don’t have to be problems if you know how to deal with them.

Here’s a paragraph I liked a lot, haha, but the book is more about other stuff and not marriage, but I liked this part anyway.
“Your spouse cannot ultimately meet your need for intimacy. If you are expecting him or her to give you all the love you need, when they are unable to do so, you will become vulnerable to defilement by someone else with an unmet love need. (that sentence is a jargoned, I know, I know, sorry) The kind of sacrificial love that a marriage requires can flow only out of the love that comes from Father’s embrace, from a relationship first established with God, from abundantly receiving His love, and then giving it away to your spouse. Until you value intimacy and love more than what God can do for you, you will continue to have a void in your heart. And, as in the laws of nature, wherever there is a void, something will try to fill it. Some people try to fill this void with alcohol, with drugs, or even with religion. But the longing and emptiness in your heart cannot be filled by anyone or anything except a relationship with the Father built upon love and intimacy, not duty and works. Until you have experienced this, it may be difficult to experience a truly intimate relationship with another person.”


My biggest revelation of the weight of God’s love came not through the book, but in timing with it.
Soon after I arrived here I got a job working at the church nursery for about 6-7 hours a week. I actually still don’t know how much I’m being paid for that job, but I think it’s probably minimum wage. I put together a resume and passed out about 12 of them applying for various positions around town, but a month had passed and nothing had come of any of them, except this really weird smelling, frantic bagel shop, and even that lady never called me back after the interview. And even though my savings were depleting everyday, I was really glad about that. Who wants to work anywhere that people cook eggs in the microwave! It still grosses me out to think about it.

But point being, I was running out of money, not really any prospects for a job, and trying to for the first time in my life support myself financially. So I was praying about it, not a lot, cause I felt like it had already been in a lot of prayer, but in my small group I wanted the girls to pray about it with me.

What I wanted most, more than flexibility, more than work I even enjoyed, was just the ability to pay for my food, my rent, my gas, my cell phone, and my life up here without having to take any more money from my parents, and not because they wouldn’t give it to me, because they would. And they would do it gladly, without giving me a guilt trip, without making me feel like I owed them, and you know, it’s not like they’d be giving to me out of this big pile of excess money, I mean, it would cost them, but they’d do it.Even now it’s making me cry to think about it. But to me, It just seems like: I’ve graduated from college, and I’m trying to be out here, and I just want to be able to bless them by saving them some money because I’m supposed to be some kind of a grown up, I mean, I’m basically 23 years old( 2 months!), not to mention my brother already owns two houses—I should be able to do this. And I felt like God had to be taking care of it because I’d prayed about it so much, and I didn’t feel like it had to do with pride, so I didn’t feel like I was in need of any kind of humbling or anything like that. So I just didn’t understand why I wasn’t finding a way to make enough money.

As the girls were praying with me about being able to make enough money, find a job, whatever it was that needed to happen, one girl got a picture in her mind of the prodigal son, returning home and his father just kissing him on his head over and over. So, for some reason, that meant a lot to me. I just felt like, wow, if I have a dad who wants to just bless me so much, with so much, not because i deserve it or he owes me, but just because he loves me, then wow, I’m so lucky, maybe God’s just telling me I need to accept my father’s blessings.

So—I left thinking that I was just going to have to feel like a spoiled “I live in a bubble, I have no cares in the world” girl and take my parent’s money while I was up here. I know it sounds good, but it’s just almost embarrassing to be so well taken care of, just because you feel bad that it can’t be the same way for everyone. Haha, you have to be careful who you tell you have it so well. That’s what I feel like sometimes.

I talked to my mom about it, and she was so good, and reassured me so much that it was a gift that they were happy to give. I just cried and cried because I don’t want to be spoiled. She said she’d tell me if I got there.

So after that I was just overwhelmed with so much thankfulness for how much I am loved. I can just think about either one of my parents and just get really teary from how much they love me. So, in all that gratefulness, I just decided, ok, if I’m going to take those blessings, then I’m going to do it right. I’m going to balance my checkbook, I’m going to do this and that and blah blah blah $$$, blah blah. That’s how money always seems to me. I never know how much is a good price for a car or a house or a salary. Every time I got a statement from the bank, or an email about a student loan, it just read like blah blah blah $$$. So, dad and I would laugh about it, ha, but I think he mostly laughed because oh no, what else can a person do when thier daughter is so clueless! It’s not the best place to be in if you’re going to take care of yourself. So, I really don’t like to have to pay attention to details, and I just always feel like everything is going to work out. So, even though I’ve received a lot of really good instruction about how to manage finances throughout my life and the principles are in my head for sure, my actions haven’t really developed so strongly. So, I decided, if I’m going to take my dad’s money, then I’m going to do it just like he wants me to. I’m going to honor him by doing my stupid checkbook, and doing this and that, and all this stuff I hate, but I’m going to do it, because he deserves it because of all he’s given me. And I don’t like it, but I want to do it. I want to be able to give him something too, to show how much I appreciate him.

So then, then I got a job, babysitting and house cleaning a couple times a week, and, it seems like it’s going to add up to be enough for me with good hours and I still have a completely free day with nothing on the schedule. So wow! A good thing, really good in fact.

But, my thankfulness still remained and I still wanted to be able to do what my dad wants, but not because he’s making me, and not because I have to, but just because I realize deeply how much he loves me, how much he gives me, and I want to do what he likes, I want to honor him.
I called him few days ago to tell him, because I had talked to my mom about it, but not my dad. And what he said, ha, made me see the depth to this whole big ordeal. He said, that’s how it’s supposed to work amy beth, you realize the father’s love for you, and you want to do what he says. Not because you have to, but because you want to. Jesus says he will know who loves him because that person will keep his commands. But they aren’t doing it because they have to, but because he first loved us, we can love him, we can do what he says because we want to, because we are so overwhelmed with his love for us, how could we not do what makes him glad! That verse isn’t about strict discipline, it’s about a response to love. not repaying love, but simply responding to it out of more love. And boom-there it was, there it is.

just a few miraculous stories

it's good to sprinkle these around every now and then-i'll start out small.

1. a personal story. after the big dance party mentioned below, i started having some pain in my knee. that was pretty normal, because it can hurt after some kind of jumping or playing sports. But this time it didn't go away, and it was really hurting more than usual. i could feel it when i was trying to go to bed, and i couldn't stand for too long in a row. So friday night, i was just about to leave the evening church service, but man, that knee--it hurt. so i went up to the front (every service there is a team of people ready to pray with anyone who needs prayer) so i went up-and a girl prayed for me, and i tried it out--felt a little better, so she prayed again, felt a little better, so she prayed again, and it felt good enough, so i left. but the next morning-no pain. i went on a run, no pain, no swelling--seems to me that it's better than ever! so i'm not sure if i'll never have that knee pain again, but i do know that Jesus sure did soemthing for me that night, and that's good!

2. one of the Norwegian girls who is visiting, who i went to the beach with, has had a hole in hear ear drum since she was born and she couldn't really hear very well out of that ear. Sunday night, God healed her completely.

3. a few weeks ago some school of ministry students began praying for a woman with a cancerous tumor on her neck. it was the size of a chicken egg. one of the students praying with her felt like God told him, "this is an attack on her esophogus, have her yell and scream as loud as she can." But he was pretty new to all this stuff, so he didn't say it because it just seemed too weird to him. and they continued praying for her and nothing was happening, so finally this guy decides to say it. She was an elderly woman, so he asked her if she was able to scream, and she said yes, so he told her what God said, and this woman just started yelling out loud, they continued praying and that tumor started shrinking, to a golf ball, smaller, to a pea, and then completely gone! they found out afterwards that this woman had come all the way across the country for a miracle--and these were just kids that just got here--didn't even know what was going on. wow!

4. Bill Johnson told this story this week at church, some of his contacts around the country emailed it to him, so i don't know where it happened. a little girl came up to a pastor and asked him to pray for her dollie, she had her hand hidden behind her back. he asked her what was wrong with her hand and when she showed it to him, he saw that she had no fingers on that hand. he told her he would pray for her dollie if he could pray for her hand too. so he put her hand in his, and when he was done praying, he took his hand away. That little girl had two hands with fingers! no fingers, and then there were fingers. the healthy hand had painted fingernails with chipped polish, and, the fingers God created also had chipped nail polish to match. That's my favorite story yet. if you can believe that, what can be impossible!?!

Church Culture and the Character of God

When I first started taking anthropology classes and my prof would talk about something that is generally accepted in society—like, actually can’t even remember a good example, probably gender something or I don’t know—anyway, she would say something, even just understanding of race, what determines race—and then say, like it was a really novel idea, “that’s cultural.” For a while, I thought when she was saying that, she meant that it wasn’t real, or that it wasn’t credible and I had a really hard time with it, because I thought—just because it’s cultural doesn’t mean it’s not important, it doesn’t mean it’s not the way things are! But—I was just starting out, so that’s not what she meant, but I didn’t understand. All the lessons were just making the point that many things that people assume are the norm or are truth, are informed by the culture they are surrounded in, very simple. Something else that was said a lot is that nothing is formed in a vacuum, that nothing comes about without being affected by what surrounds it.
It’s good to understand the body of Christ in these same ways, all different denominations, all different backgrounds of Christianity. I feel really lucky that I didn’t even understand that there was such a thing as a denomination until well into high school because its not too hard for me to look out and see unity instead of division, because I don’t even know the differences in theology that different groups disagree on, and I like it like that. I like thinking about things without those limitations, so I’m just going to talk about things like I experience them, and leave the filtering up to whoever is reading this.
There are a lot of things within this church culture that I haven’t experienced before—a lot of things about the culture that are really appealing, the main thing being the freedom of expression. Last Tuesday, ha!, during the worship service, the entire room just erupted into a giant dance party. I felt like I was in an 80’s movie or something—people dancing everywhere, some dancing well, others not so well, one guy doing really violent looking somersaults across the stage. And the feeling in the room was joy, I was having so much fun! I even got a cramp. But it just made me think about dancing—everyone in the world does it, every culture I mean—and there is some meaning to it everywhere. And I think it does have a place in worship—it’s a way of adding emphasis to what you want to express. It makes me think about this movie my brother and I made for my parents on their 50th birthdays. Benj impersonated dad and I impersonated mom, and when we showed it to them, they laughed so much, my mom laughed harder than I’ve ever seen her laugh. And during one scene, she just couldn’t laugh enough and she started doing these funny kicks and slapping the bed where we were all watching the movie—just because laughter only wasn’t enough to demonstrate what needed to be expressed. So I think it’s the same as dancing--it can aid the expression. And there are some people who dance all the time. But the good thing about being here is that if you want to—you can, and no one will think you’re trying to get attention, or that you’re a total weirdo. But if you don’t want to, who cares.
So—the freedom, that’s a good thing I think. But, also, I do not just want another church culture. I don’t just want a new setting with new rules, or with rules that I like better. So it’s been a gradual sifting of what is just part of this culture and the questions of what meaning do parts of this culture contain. A huge revelation I’ve had since getting here is how God feels about purity. When I got back from Bolivia last year, I had was really sensitive to characteristics of Christian culture that I felt were empty-I hated it, I wanted NOTHING to do with it. And, in just rejecting something outright like that, I couldn’t see the deeper meaning to it, and I missed out on something. The example that has been heaviest to me is purity. I was really fed up and confused by a lot of ideas a lot of the more conservative Christian culture has about dating and relationships, modesty, etc. Really fed up, and really boxed in. So, I just discredited a lot of those ideas as nothing more than a culture that was afraid of sex, didn’t know how to deal with it, didn’t know how to talk about it, and by doing that, I missed out on the actual meaning, the center of those ideas. So those rules about what to wear and how to act and how to think just lost all meaning to me. It’s the same with any concept, if rules and rituals become the center, then the meaning gets lost and it’s empty. But I feel like in the past few weeks, I’ve had my eyes opened to see how wow, I can see how the ideas behind those rules came about, because purity is so important to God. It means so much to him. No one even taught me this at all, it’s just something that he brought me.
And I came to it, by learning more about who God is, and what he’s like.
So what I’ve been thinking about for the past few weeks, is the character of God, because I’m learning more about him everyday. Do you know that God has never been mad at you? Well, you know, I don’t think I really knew that.—and I’m just writing this in the dark in the middle of the night—so I can’t give verses right now, but I will before too long.
I think this culture here is what it is because of what is believed about the character of God. That he is so good, that he is so in love with each of his people, that he has a real plan and destiny for each person, that he wants to be with us, that he longs for us, that he loves us into correction instead of getting angry with us, that we don’t have to do anything to impress him, that he wants to heal us, that he wants the very very best for us. He loves justice, he’s all good, in him there is no darkness at all.
Wow—knowing that God, I’ll tell you what, re-getting to know that God has made it so much easier for me to trust God with my heart. When I feel dissatisfied with how something is going, I just remember that the King of the Universe is holding the pen to my story, and knowing that, and knowing who he is—hey, that makes me feel good! Even if the situation is still lacking in my eyes. I don’t even feel like, “well, I know I should just know that God is taking care of it, so I guess I’m ok.” I mean, it makes me feel really good.
I think there is a lot more to this subject, so I’m hoping to get some time to share some more soon.
Other updates: my brother now has a wife!(hi mary!), I went to the beach twice this past week—loved it—super cold, super fun, I started my little job at the church nursery and my arms are sore from holding children, still looking for another little job to make ends meet, get a chance to run or ride my bike a couple times a week, annnnd I just made some pumpkin bread.