Today I am comforted that I rest in the embrace of God. This is not just today’s reality, but I am ever mindful that each new day is graced by His presence. This is the simplicity of my relationship with God. Relationships, in general, are complicated and have been an equal measure of both heartache and joy in my life. I share this today with fresh heartache and raw feelings, so I shall tread lightly with discretionary words as I simply attempt to process. God has made me a person who loves deeply; it’s just a natural response for me, although these days it seems a bit more complicated by life, people, and my own inability to trust. I heard it once said that to the measure we love someone is also the measure we allow ourselves to be hurt. Those who love deeply also hurt deeply. Christ surely did and still does. I know we have all been in that boat.

One truth I have found however, no matter how disappointed in people I find myself to be, is that God has remained the one true constant in which I can depend. He is, in essence, my unconditional reality for love, peace, and grace. He’s my dad. For someone who grew up without family, or rather, grew up with many families, it is a comfort beyond imagination to know you have an irrevocable place in someone’s life. God isn’t fickle. He doesn't love deeply one day and the next decide it’s time to abandon us. He doesn't push us out of the nest and tell us to make it on our own. He doesn't decide we have grown past the point of needing him, nor does he love someone more deeply over another. People do however, and sadly, our view of God becomes tainted by those who walk a different way than they profess. We must trust God to be God, and people to be people. People will inevitably let us down, but it is beyond God’s character to do so. There is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God. I have discovered that it doesn’t matter how many times it happens, or how many different ways it occurs, when you come to the point of realization that a personal relationship has changed or no longer exists, the pain is still the same. Heartbreaking. Even today, living in probably the most stable period I have ever known as a happily married adult, I still ache for the absence of a childhood family. It’s this ache for the familiar to return home to that saddens me. Yet, scripture reminded me today in Psalms 68:8 that, “God sets the lonely in families.”

Focusing then on what I have presently and not on what I have lost or do not have, I realize how very real this truth is. Not only has God placed me in His family but has mirrored that very relationship in a physical, tangible way through my marriage to help me understand just how eternally grafted into a place of belonging I really am. So today in the midst of a lot of questions I don’t have answers to and really, a lot of disappointment with people in general, this I know. I am the daughter of a King, deeply loved, fully accepted, eternally positioned, and graced in love. I have been given by the King to a man who both loves and respects him, and who has done well to protect and safe-keep my heart and to reflect the passionate love of the King to me. I am chosen, not forgotten. Loved, not abandoned. Embraced, not distanced. This is the heavenly reality and my daddy’s embrace today. After all, He’s the King.