A Father's Love

When I was 17 I had this short lived boyfriend for a few months my junior year. It was the only time in high school I had a boyfriend. I didn't date much in high school and if you knew me back then, you would know that I wasn't into anything seriously and especially not relationships I felt would hold me back. I was never the girl growing up dreaming of marriage and kids. I knew I wanted to grow up, spread my wings, travel and see the world and then eventually marry...maybe, but had a long list of things I wanted to do first. So, this short lived boyfriend confirmed that feeling of not wanting to settle down anytime soon and here's why.

His name was Matt and we dated right around my 17th birthday and into the spring. It was prom season and I had an automatic date which I thought was pretty cool. At the time we both worked at Kmart in Richmond with a bunch of our other friends. One Friday night he drove me home from work and said he was going home too. The next day I was at work and my best friend, Susan, sat down with me at lunch and said she had something she needed to tell me. She proceeded to tell me that after Matt dropped me off the night before, our common friend told her she saw him parked for the night at another girls home from school. I sat there stunned. Mad. But even deeper, I was hurt. I confronted him. Asked him why his car was parked at Dana's house for the night and he fumbled over his words as he struggled to find the right words to say to give an excuse as to why he was there. The gist of the story was, I wasn't sleeping with him and he needed that from me so went to Dana instead. He cheated on me. He said he could still take me to prom, to which my response was, nah, don't do me any favors. He ended up taking Dana to prom that year, in the limo (with a few of my other friends). I know this is all high school drama and not really considered cheating when it was only a 3 month relationship but it stung. My heart had been hurt and my parents hurt over my pain, too.

Yesterday, as I was driving, I had time to listen to some music. A few songs had been sent to me from friends and so I listened. A couple of lines though in both songs stood out to me that I had to really think about it. A sort of theme that got me really thinking.

The one song had a bridge that went like this speaking of God and where He is at:

Here in the middle of the lonely night
Here in the middle of the losing fight, You're
Here in the middle of the deep regret
Here when the healing hasn't happened yet
Here in the middle of the desert place
Here in the middle when I cannot see Your face
Here in the middle with Your outstretched arms
You can see my pain and it breaks Your heart

The other song said such similar words but just a different melody. But same concept of God being here in the midst of pain, brokeness and sees our pain and it breaks His heart.

The line that jumped out the most was 'you see my pain and it breaks your heart' as I began to process my life and how it is that our situation in life 'breaks God's heart', I asked God, how does this all break your heart when you knew what was going to happen? I know we are broken but how does your heart, God get broken? I told Jim that sometimes I feel like I'm sinking in the middle of an ocean and there are people all around but most can't see that I'm hurting still. That I'm still processing through so much of my own brokeness. That I don't feel like moving on much these days but know I have to so that's what people see...they see me moving on and doing life because what other option do I have but in my heart I feel numb, sinking and aching with pain.

As I was asking God about the accident and about Grace and the pain which is happening simultaneously with my mother in law dying in the late stages of Alzheimers. I said to God this is all too much, how do you fit into all of this?  He reminded me of the Matt story. Odd timing right? Why would that memory be called up to focus on in a time like this? These two life events are as polar opposite as can be and one was just a silly high school event while this current life situation as changed the trajectory of our entire lives.

And God spoke gently to my heart. Your earthly father adored you. He did. My dad loved us girls fiercely. I never ever had to question my dad's love for me. His love always made understanding my Heavenly Father's love easy to get. I knew my sisters and I were loved by Pete Pochodaj as completely as an imperfect daddy could love a daughter and, in turn, I've always known my perfect Heavenly Father loved me but in an even more complete way then my Earthly father did (Matthew 7:11) yet yesterday God spoke a different nuance of that love to me.

As, I remember how my dad's heart was broken over my pain and what that guy had done to me, I remember feeling my dad's anger towards him too...it was palatable. So much so that during the summer following my junior year I guess my dad saw him in a store and cornered him to 'discuss' what he had done to his daughter. My dad was an ex marine, vietnam vet so you can imagine the terror this 17 year old kid had when he was met with an angry father over what was done to one of his daughters but beyond my dad's imperfect anger was his pain over my broken heart.

My dad loved me and so does God but I never connected that with that depth of love often times comes a broken heart. My dad's heart broke from my pain because he couldn't stop this guy from doing something dumb. Matt made a stupid decision and it affected me and in turn broke my dad's heart.

Cut to, January 25, 2016, and an entirely different stupid choice was made and with far deeper consequences. A stupid man made an awful and life altering decision to get in a car while drinking and drove recklessly into my beautiful niece's car stealing her life. It broke God's heart because He loves us and out of that love, He feels our intense pain and hurt and He hurts over this for us and with us. That's the depth of love He has for us, that our pain is His pain. Like a good Earthly father hates when something hurts their child, how much more does God, our Heavenly Father ache over what happens to us? Because of that stupid man's free will, our lives have been set forevermore in a different direction without Grace....but not without God.

This thought revolutionized the way I looked at it. I have always known God is our strength in this, our peace and our comfort but to know that He grieves with us and it breaks His heart? That somehow oddly helps me a little bit more in this journey. He's not some God up there doing stuff to us to teach us a lesson (I've never believed that) and I've always known His love but I have never taken it one step further that out of His great love for us, He also feels our pain and it breaks His heart. And for some reason today that gives me comfort. He is right by our side and sees our pain and comforts us. Just like a good Earthly dad would sit on the edge of a bed and wipe away your tears, God too, catches our tears Psalm 56:8, aches over our pain Psalm 34:18 and wants nothing more than to bring comfort to our weary and aching hearts. But unlike an Earthly dad, our Heavenly Father does this in the most perfect and complete way possible.

That's true love.