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The Daddy Complex
 
I grew up in a household with an abusive stepdad, both physically and verbally. It was, to say the very, very least, not fun.  When my parents divorced, and we moved back home to Kentucky from the NorthWest, I met my real dad. Who…again…was not the greatest role model a girl ever had.

And so I grew up, as many girls do, with a really skewed perspective of the idea of "Daddy." I saw movies where Daddy comes home from work and smiles at his kids, maybe he plays with them, he argues with them because he loves them and wants to keep them safe, he delights in them, and so on and so forth. But my experience was never that.

And so I grew up looking for attention and relationships with men in a really unhealthy way. Always attention-seeking, never truly believing a man could come through for me, dad or otherwise.

At my church, off and on over the past year or so, we've been discussing the different sides of the Lord, and a lot of that talk including Him as Father. The Lord as Father. God Almighty…as FATHER.

And I just have no concept of that. Definitely not a positive one, at least.

In fact, I try my best NOT to think of God as Father, as Provider, as Parent In Charge Of My Wellbeing and Happiness. I try to think of God as Lover, as Pursuer, as Dependable Being, as anything really, other than my Papa.

My precious friend Amber was visiting me last night, and we started talking about our ideas of God, and she started revealing to me this image of God as Father, as a Daddy who delights in His babies… who laughs with them and cries with them and hurts when they fall down and get hurt.

And I just started crying. I wanted so badly to think of Him as Dad, to FEEL Him as Papa, to experience His Fatherness. I wanted to know what it felt like to be Someone's little girl, and for Him to come rushing to my aid when I need Him to.

This whole concept is still difficult for me to really understand. But I'm trying to let Him love me as my Papa. I'm trying to let His love slowly tear down these walls of fear and insecurity and uncertainty that I've built up over a lifetime of Dad-less-ness.

I know He loves me with a precious Love that cannot be explained or fathomed. I want to feel it in a way that I already know exists. I want to climb up into my Daddy's lap and know that He's there for me, and that I can be a little girl, safe and sound in her Papa's arms.