The most vivid memory I have from my early childhood is of running down the footpath from my house to meet my father, with the expectation of seeing his arms opening wide ready to embrace me. The reason I remember that day is because he didn’t meet me there. It was in that moment at the end of the road that I remembered he had left and wouldn’t ever be coming home again. It was only then that I understood what I had been told and I was left with the pain of deep rejection, feeling sad and unworthy, knowing that my father had chosen to be somewhere else.
That rejection cut deep within me and brought with it a great emptiness and longing. As a child I carried with me the burden of this sadness and the weight of not feeling worthy of being loved. I felt broken and often wondered if I would ever feel truly happy.
From an early age I believed that God was real and over the years that followed he gradually used the hurt that I felt to draw me near to him. I wanted desperately to relate to God but felt sure that he could never really love me. Despite hearing God calling me to him as I read the Bible and tried to pray, it took many years before I truly believed that my heavenly Father would never let me down, and even longer for me to give myself completely to him. God gradually helped me to trust him and to learn to find shelter and refuge in him, even when around me all else seemed to be going wrong.
It was so hard to fathom that the creator of the universe wanted to welcome me and that he loved and cared for me like no other. But in sending his son to die for me the depth of his love was unmistakable.
More recently, I experienced rejection from my earthly father once again. Although still painful, the difference this time was that I was aware that my value doesn’t lie in the things of this earth. I have meaning because I am a child of God. I know that my heavenly Father is trustworthy, dependable and true, and that his love for me is deep and endless and without condition. To this I hold onto tightly.
God, my heavenly Father, who waited so patiently for me with his arms wide open, has called me to him and welcomed me. He loves and cares for me like no other and he alone makes me whole.
I have chosen to run without fear towards my heavenly Father and to kneel at his feet. Because in him, and only in him, can we find true refuge and true peace. He will never leave us or let us down and he is our true protector. He is not only capable of bearing all of our burdens but when we trust him wholeheartedly, he gives us wonderful rest and peace.
Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust’. (Psalm 91: 1–2)