My 1 Story

Many years ago I was working with a family in the northern part of Pinellas County. They were a very nice, loving and caring family. They had everything money could buy. The older sibling, in elementary school, was gifted. The child with whom I was working was on the Austistic Spectrum. A lovely little boy. In his own world from which he might not ever emerge. After working with this family for close to two months I was sitting with the parents, discussing the possible futures for their son. The father leaned in close and asked me, his eyes filled with hope mixed with pain “will he ever look at me and call me ‘Daddy’?” His beautiful little boy, a preschooler, had never acknowledged his father. He had never climbed up into his lap and asked for a snuggle or looked lovingly into his father’s face. In fact the little boy had never indicated that his father was anything more than a piece of furniture, useful but unrelated to him.

I regarded the father’s pain and desperation. His longing for a relationship with his son. This wonderful treasured child. This child who embodied the father’s love and longing. I could give him no reassurance. I could make him no promises. I had no answer. I watched with my heart aching and breaking as this father, this grown man, who would have willingly given his life just to hear his son call him “Daddy”, sobbed. I watched as he crumbled into a mass of body wracking sobs. His wife held him and they rocked together on the couch. Sobbing with grief and desire.

This is how I see God. A father desperate to have His treasured children call him “Daddy”. He so longs for a relationship with us that He was willing and did die rather than to live without hearing , at least some of us call Him “Daddy”. I think that is how it is when you are treasured, and that ONE Thing being treasured by God made all of the difference.

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