For some of us, this is true of our relationships with our fathers but for others, this type of father could not be farther from the truth. Maybe you witnessed your father cheating on your mother. Maybe you witnessed your father abusing his wife, a woman he swore to honor and cherish, or maybe you yourself fell victim to his abuse. Perhaps you never witnessed your father doing any of these things because you never knew him at all.
No matter the type of father, as women, we yearn for the love and approval of a man and it starts with our relationships with our fathers. When we've experienced a not so great relationship with our own father, we either carry around the burden or we seek elsewhere to find the love we're lacking. For example, some of us spend our lives carrying around the heavy burden of our father's wrongdoings on our hearts, allowing this to prohibit us from having a healthy relationship with a man or with ourselves, for that matter. We feel unworthy of a man's love because we think to ourselves, "How can a man love me if not even my own father, my flesh and blood, couldn't love me or our family enough to be the man he should've been?". Some may try to fill the void by seeking love from men who are far from being worthy of us, yet we still offer pieces of ourselves to them as a desperate attempt. We relentlessly devalue and defile ourselves all because we don't know the true love of a father or a man.
The good news is that we already have the love of our Heavenly Father and because of the love our God has for us, we don't have to carry around the scars on our hearts left by any other man! We don't have to seek his approval anymore than just by accepting him into our hearts and following his ways. We have father who, no matter our wrongdoings, will never leave or forsake us and who will always, no matter what, forgive us. A father who chose US to be HIS daughters; who thinks we are beautiful and wonderful in our appearance just the way we are. And because we have our Heavenly Father who loves us so greatly, we no longer have to seek the approval of a man because through him, the Son of Man also loved us so much that he laid down his own life for us that we could live in eternity with our Father. No greater love is this.
You ARE already worthy of a Father's love.
"Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins." Ephesians 1:4-7 NLT
