The Blessing

"The moment Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters, the skies opened up and he saw God's Spirit—it looked like a dove—descending and landing on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: 'This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.'" Matthew 3:16-17 (The Message)

Every so often, the Lord brings this verse to my forethought and I ponder on it. As I ponder about it, I get this picture.

The picture is of me and how, all my life, I have wished that my own father--who is a good man and a wonderful father, that unselfishly provided for me and my siblings--would accept me as I am--not perfect, not brilliant or beautiful--but a good person who loves God with all her heart. A person that wanted to be valued and to be considered, now that she is grown-up, a friend.

But I have to insert here that to be totally honest, he may. But because he has never verbally told me or by his actions, shown me--I feel what I expressed earlier--that he has to love me because I am his daughter, but he doesn't like me or is proud that I am even his daughter. I don't feel like I have an important facet of my emotional makeup-- my father's blessing.

Are you in a similar emotional tangle? Can you relate? You may or may not agree, but it can really mess with you. It can affect your other relationships or how you relate to others. It can make you feel unworthy, insecure.

Turn it all over to Jesus. Speaking from experience, it is the best thing that you can do for yourself. That is when I was able to begin to shed the layers of my hangups, hurts and habits and truly be the person that God created me to be.

When I was finally able to accept that my Heavenly Father accepted me as I was, once I admitted that I was nothing without Him, that He wanted a relationship with me, that He was proud of the daughter that I am and am continuing to become--that was when I became empowered. That was when I was able to accept my father as the wonderful man that he was. That I was able to have compassion for him. Realizing that he wasn't on purpose withholding his blessing--but that he didn't have enough love and self-respect in himself to give it.

Do you see? In my case, it wasn't intentional. In yours, maybe it was. But no matter which way it is, the awesome part of it is that we, you & I, can be free! We can be free in the knowledge of Jesus that, by His graciousness and selfless act of giving up heaven for 30 years, dying on the cross and raising up again--we are priceless! We are cherished! We are worth every drop of blood that He shed for us. Can you grasp that concept? Can you grasp that if our/His Heavenly Father would ask Jesus to do it all over again, that He would in a heartbeat? No questions asked? That just blows me away and humbles me to tears all in the same instant.

You have your Father's blessing! Claim it, cherish it and then continually thank Him. Every time you approach Him, He is saying to you, "You are mine, chosen and marked with My love, delight of My eye!"