My Daddy

A week has gone by since I came back, came back from the trip of a life time, a get away to meet with my Father in heaven, who turned out to be that amazingly loving, caring, understanding and merciful one...
the closeness I found has allowed me to continue to enjoy the new found intimacy, the shelter, the SECURITY I have always longed for and never had before..
My prayer life has changed, it always was a continuous conversation, somehow always addressing Jesus, my Lord and Saviour more than the Father, I still have this, a privilege beyond anything imaginable, but now there is this other place I am, constantly, in the strong embrace of my Daddy in heaven, He never lets go of me, how amazing is that??
He is right there with me , in all circumstances...it's almost as if I just look Him in the eye and we have this understanding, that doesn't need any words..
Some of my friends are blessed in that way, that their father was portraying who God the Father is to them pretty well...I, though, was afraid of my Father to an extent that as a young child I would cry when he would speak to me. He never made it to the hospital the day I was born, business was a priority, not his wife and his second child, me.... He could get quite furious and sometimes I didn't even know why, when he got angry he sometimes would hit me very hard... there are memories of him breaking through a locked door to get to us, because we had been making noise and woken him up from his nap... my sister would wake up almost every night because of an asthma attack.... she never dared to go into my parents bedroom to wake my mother up because she was afraid my father would get angry... so she woke me up and I went to get my mother every time..He didn't allow my grandmother to come to our house, he kept the dogs in the house and would continue to come to the house in his riding clothes even though my sister had horrible allergies and this caused her more asthma attacks, ..... he threatened to kill my mother and I believed it to the extent that I took my 2 1/2 year old, my newborn baby , and myself ( 10 days after my C-section) on a trip with them because I felt I had to protect my mother...
These are the memories that just come, without having to think about it too much....
When I became a Christian I worked through forgiveness and my father for sure was one of the people I had to forgive...
As a result of who I am and who my parents are I had to put up wise and healthy boundaries... if anything this has caused my parents to be angry at me even more.
My father continues to "love" ( if you can call it that) conditionally only.....
So you get why this encounter with my Daddy in heaven has me smiling whenever I am thinking about it. I know that we all fall short, in all that we do. I know that I am by far not the mother I want to be, or let alone need to be... I am sure my father didn't get up in the morning and decided that today he would mess his kids up even more.... so he is forgiven....
But thank the Lord, thank my heavenly Father, my Daddy for revealing Himself to me like He has been doing over the last few years, culminating in my encounter with Him on a Cruise ship in Alaskan waters...I praise Him for His goodness and mercy, for His love and acceptance, for His loving kindness and gentleness... for being all and so much more for me and for all of you!!!!