The Daily Walk

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The Daily Walk Part 24 - Dad's Imprint on Your Heart

by Gail Rodgers
He was 80 and old. My friend was 50 and still mad at him. He had made mistakes in raising her. She could recount them well, and she did as her fingers curled tightly around the invisible handle of the baggage she had carried for so long.

Dads don’t always get it right. If you are a daughter you know that well already. Some Dads even get it terribly wrong. Sometimes things happen to daughters that never, ever should!
Dads leave an imprint on a daughter’s heart that makes a lasting imprint. You are the only one who can decide what to do with what has been imprinted on your heart.
My friend knew she needed to allow God’s healing to flow over her heart and she did…from time to time. She would let God lop off the bitter fruit that sprang from her childhood experience and off she would go. But without the root gone, it always grew back. As she focused on her pain and her dad’s inadequacies she became twisted in a knot. Her yesterday of life began to rule her today.
God doesn’t want His daughters to live that way. He wants to begin a work in your heart that will bring healing and wholeness where wounding and scars are now. Father God wants to re-write the Dad chapter of your life and show you how treasured and loved you are as His precious child.
God makes a lasting imprint on a daughter’s heart that leaves a foot print to follow.
Let this Father’s Day be a change point in your life. If your wounds go deep, talk to a trusted friend and seek God’s help in moving beyond the despair and shame of yesterday.God longs for your heart to be free! He will take you on a journey to wholeness…follow Him there…you can trust Him in this.

“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6

If your Dad was a blessing in your life, tell him so. If he is gone, tell someone about him. Our God of Hope will multiply the blessings of your heritage just as he will also redeem the destruction of the past!
prayer & reflection

Father God,
Today I want to ask You to restore the broken places in my life. Sometimes I can’t even get to You because I see my father first and the pain turns me from You, my Heavenly Father. Today I ask that You would not only begin this work of healing in my heart and life, but also carry it on to completion. Thank you that I can look to You as my Heavenly Father. Thank you for Your care for me as Your treasured child.
In the name of Jesus’ I pray, Amen.