My Father’s Arms

Trusting Our Heavenly Father

The Lord has blessed my husband and me with four wonderful (usually) children. Ours is a full, busy household.

Like many other mothers, my days are crowded with demands from my family to meet their physical and spiritual needs: shopping, cooking, cleaning, organizing, or being a prayer partner for a child with an urgent claim on God’s grace. It seems that hardly has one chore ended when the next begins.

It is also my God-given responsibility, and joy, to teach my children, nurturing them in the things of the Lord. And so it sometimes comes as a surprise to me when the Lord uses my children to teach me!

We are blessed with generous friends who permit us to enjoy their very private swimming pool. It is such fun for our family to swim and splash together. One day, after we had been swimming for a while, two-year-old Julia and I decided to get out of the water and take a little break.

It wasn’t long before Daddy approached the side of the pool where we sat. Reaching out his arms, he called to Julia.

The water where he stood was about four feet deep, well over Julia’s little head. But upon hearing her Daddy’s voice calling to her, she didn’t stop to think nor did she consider the depth of the water. She simply turned to him, ran, and jumped into his arms!

Julia not only loves her Daddy, but she also trusts him. He has never given her any reason to doubt him. Her child’s heart knew he would catch her and keep her safe.

I thought then of my Father in Heaven: how He often calls to me. He has never given me any reason to doubt His care for me or His ability to protect me. And yet I so often hesitate to follow Him.

So while I sat listening to Julia’s laughter as she cuddled with her Daddy, I asked the Lord to help me trust and obey Him in the same wholehearted way and to remember how much He loves me. Psalm 103:13 came to mind: “Like as a father pitieth his children, So the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” I rejoice in this sweet picture of Father and child, and the love that He has for me.