On My Father's Lap

My favorite time is when I climb into my Father’s lap. I know He’s always there waiting and inviting me to sit with Him awhile. I know He’ll always welcome me no matter how I’ve grown, what I look like, where I’ve come from, or how long it’s been since I was with Him.

This is such a special time. It’s a time when, though my family is large, my Father has reserved for just He and I to be together. He invites me to talk with Him and to share what’s on my mind and in my heart.

My Father listens to my every word. He seems to understand my pain, concerns, heartbreaks, and worries, and He shares in my joys and sorrows. While sometimes He may respond, in His quiet voice, other times I know that through His silence His response will come later, and that He will faithfully respond at another time.

He knows all of those that I talk to Him about and through His responses; sometimes I believe that He knows them much better than I do. His words of wisdom I may not immediately understand, yet I have grown to know that sooner or later I will see that what he speaks will make all things clear.

My favorite time, while in my Father’s lap is when neither He nor I say anything. How wonderful the assurance that at that time there is no one else around – just my Father and me. I lay my head against His chest, hear His heartbeat, listen to His breaths, and feel the warming comfort of His arms around me.

My Father’s lap, no safer place, nowhere more comfortable – an ever-present place of solitude where love is expressed and felt like no other. I love to be there, yet often forget to go there when I am so wrapped up in things going on in my life and in the world around me.

While I know that I can’t stay there every hour of every day, I know that when I most need Him He will always be there ready and waiting for me to climb back into His lap and find the comfort, reassurance, healing and hope that can only be found there.

He told me of another Son that died before I was born. He said that His Son also climbed upon His lap when He needed comfort, reassurance, or just to listen to His Father’s heartbeat. He said that, though it might be hard for me to understand, because this Son died it was possible for me and His other children to climb into His lap.

My Father has shared with me that one day I, and my brothers and sisters would all be able to gather around Him, along with His Son. He said that His Son would come to gather us to take us to our Father. He said that then we would never need to leave Him – how grand that day will be.

I don’t know when that day may come, but I do know that until then my Father is just waiting for me to climb into His lap - no matter how I’ve grown, what I look like, where I’ve come from, or how long it’s been since I was with Him.

JMc 2/16/2007