yours, mine and ours.

When I was 15, my Dad told me we couldn't have a relationship any more.

He was angry because I refused to side with him on a legal issue between he and my mother. So he called me one morning. He was crying, but firm, and he said that if I refused to take his side, we couldn't have a relationship, we couldn't be father and daughter any more.

I remember telling him that wrong was wrong, and right was right, and he should just give her the cash.

He wasn't hearing me. He just kept telling me he couldn't talk to me anymore. Said he had thought that he'd raised me to be a smart, and logical person, but he'd been wrong. I was neither.

And in a moment of pure grace from God, because I don't count myself wise enough to have said this on my own, I told him that I love him. That I'm sorry that he felt that way, and I'd be loving him all the same, and waiting for him to come back. But that he should think carefully--because while I would forgive him and love him still, he couldn't get the time back. Whatever he missed, he missed.

He hung up on me.

It was my junior year in college before I could face that memory, and so many others, without a stinging in my heart. A hurt.

I don't feel the hurt anymore. I don't hold it against him. I consider it a responsibility of my faith to love him without expectation, to hope for the best in him without setting him up to fail. I don't always do that so well. Sometimes, I'm terrible.

Even if the pain is gone, though, there's a legacy left of experiences like that one.

A few months ago, I was in Jeremiah, and I read, "I will be your Father, and you will be my daughter." It was a powerful moment, and I did a double-take into my bible. The sentence actually read: "I will be their God, and they will be my people." I had made a pretty fantastical error. And no error at all.

I've known for a while that one of the reasons I've had so much trouble in understanding God as real, and powerful, and loving, is that I don't have an earthly example. My Dad loves me more than anything in the world. But he doesn't always. He wasn't wise enough to see that his bashing my mother tore apart my relationship with her (in ways that she and I are still dealing with today). He wasn't self-controlled enough to stop the pattern of adultery that tore apart two of my families. He wasn't selfless enough to love me when he didn't want to. He wasn't humble enough to admit to any of it.

I'm walking a bad line here. Writing things about him that he might not appreciate being known. But this is my life. These stories are my stories. And I believe with all of my heart that God will work through my family with raw and graceful force. He's already started.

He's started with telling me that line, "I will be your Father, and you will be my daughter." Because God will never call me and tell me that we can't have a relationship anymore. His grace, and His call are irrevocable. His love isn't conditional, and His wisdom is not optional.

Do you believe that?

I do.