Grateful for fathers and our Heavenly Father

          Well, it's a day late, but still it's never too late to be grateful and give thanks to God, right?  So...
          Thank You, Father, for fathers.  Thank You for my earthly daddy.  What a priceless gift He was to all my brothers and sisters and to me.  Thank You for his legacy of love, faithfulness, and quiet, gentle, yet powerful strength.  He truly demonstrated the astounding beauty of humility.
         And thank You, Lord, for my husband and for the wonderful father that he is to our children. Thank You for the blessing of marriage and for the priceless joy of loving--and being loved by--another person.  And thank You, as well, for how through marriage, You reveal to us our own selfishness and our daily need to die to ourselves.  Whew, I have a long way to go!
          Thank You, Father, for my father-in-law and his example of tenderly caring for and serving his sweet wife, my dear mother-in-law, in the last years of her life on this earth.  And thank You for all the wonderful dads that are our friends and that we know and love.  Each of them, in myriad differing ways and through their own unique personalities, providing faithful and inspiring pictures of fatherhood.  Daddies who love, serve, sacrifice, protect, forgive, defend, help, and guide those under their care.          
          But Abba, thank You most of all for being our perfect Heavenly Father who is always with us, always for us, always forgives us, always leads us, always empowers us, always encourages us, and always and forever loves us.  It's a profound and incomprehensible mystery: the perfect, holy, ineffable Almighty God loves and redeems us.  How can it be?  Us--little dust people who so often fail, complain, disappoint, wander, reject, and rebel.  Yet the unmistakable message of the the cross is: You love us extravagantly and through Jesus' death and resurrection, You forgive us, redeem us, will never leave us, and have an astoundingly glorious future in store for us.
         Oh might we never, ever get over the shocking, joyous wonder of Who You are and all You have done--and will do--for us.  Thank You that we have a Good, Good Father, as the song says.  Thank You for loving us.  Thank You, Father, for all our earthly fathers and for being our perfect and never-failing Heavenly Daddy.  We love You.
         To God--our Father--be all the glory.