The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever. (Psalm 121:8)
I’ve been watching them for ten months now – a father/daughter duo during their morning routine. Their everyday schedule coincides with mine. The 11-mile trek from my front door to my office door takes a usual path – country roads, four-way stops, grazing cows, fields of harvest and an occasional stopped school bus.
This is where our worlds intersect. I don’t know them by name. I only know them by their actions. Each time I’ve seen them together, the scene paints similarly. Around 7:19 AM, I get stuck behind Harnett County bus #249 as it rolls to a stop on the road adjacent to their property. The pair is usually waiting together, a dad and his daughter. Occasionally, she makes a sprint to the bus from her front door, but not without her father sprinting in tow.
He’s always there … with her. Rain or shine. Early or late. On time or just killing time.
This daddy waits with his daughter.
I cannot fully know the motives behind his waiting. Perhaps it’s her safety that warrants his participation. Maybe he just wants to send her off with a few extra words of daily encouragement. Regardless of the reasons for his being there in these early morning moments of her every single day, the fact remains that there hasn’t been an occasion in ten months when I’ve seen one without the other. Daddy and daughter are a team.
My hunch is that his motivation isn’t anchored solely in parental duty but, rather, is rooted more in parental privilege.
This daddy understands the value of their kinship and his responsibility therein.
Soon enough, she’ll be on her own, not needing her father’s chaperoning to make it to the bus. Before long, those final glances between them will fade, maybe even feel less necessary. She will grow in ways that can be seen and measured. He will grow in a way not easily detected by the human eye, only felt deeply within. Growth pains come with parenting – his pain perhaps more pointed and precise than hers.
Still and yet, he’s all in. He risks the pain because he treasures the person – his child.
He loves her because she is an extension of him – a profound, sketched-out mystery by the very hand and heart of God. In giving us children, the Father gives us an example of the length and width, breadth and depth of his love for us … a hands-on, living, breathing, and growing paint-by-number portrait of heavenly affection. This love expression is not always perfected in human exchange, but every now and again, it comes pretty close to revealing this most profound mystery –
the love between a father and his daughter.
The love between a heavenly Father and his child.
He’s always there … with us. Rain or shine. Early or late. On time or just killing time.
He watches over our evenings, and when the morning arrives, he walks us to the bus stop. He waits with us because he loves us, both duty and privilege weighing equally in the matter. God does what good fathers do.
He loves us up close – seasons when having him near us brings reassurance, strength, wisdom and calm.
He loves us from afar – seasons when his presence seems less necessary. When our backward glances fail to find his forward ones. When our growing pains come at the expense of his own.
He loves us because we are an extension of him. Regardless of whether we see him or not, our eyesight doesn’t preclude the reality of his presence.
God is always with us.
Faithful is our Father. Precious is his presence. What privilege we hold to be held in his sights!
For what it’s worth, this is the word picture and the holy rumination that’s been chasing my heart for many months now. Today was the day to put pen to paper. I pray it’s an encouragement for your heart as well. As always…
Peace for the journey,
