Tuesday, April 25, 2017

“Trails In My Heart”

"Trails In My Heart"            
     
   I think about him often, although I never really knew him.  He passed away when I was two, and my only memories of him may actually be things I heard about him from family members.

   I reference my earthly father, Glen C. Davis Sr.  He suffered a heart attack at 37 related to a congenital issue that challenged him for much of his life.  His passing greatly affected my life, and to this day, I have no doubt that my father's absence during my formative years bears influence.  I was blessed with a mother who made incredible sacrifices for me after my father died, and I have no complaints whatsoever about my childhood.  God has been amazingly good to me.  However, not having my father with me in those years left trails in my heart upon which I still sometimes travel.

   The main path involves relationship with my Heavenly Father.  I have no doubt whatsoever that He used the void left after my earthly father's passing to lead me to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ when I was 18.  The details are unimportant as to how this occurred.  I'm just grateful that it happened.  And I see more clearly than ever that the emptiness I felt caused me to seek something - Someone - to fill it.  How grateful I am that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ occupied the void , and will forever remain with me as His gift of the most undeserved grace.  "And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him" (Colossians 3:17).

   A thorn still pricks somewhere deep in my heart when I think of Glen C. Davis Sr.  I didn't really know him, but his influence remains in terms of both the little time I had with him, and the much time I've had without him.  That influence paved the most important trail in my heart, the one upon which my Heavenly Father traveled to make His way to me.  He is the Father I have known more, and who I need to know so much better.  So, when I think of my earthly father, I give thanks for him in the knowledge that both his presence and his absence remains one of the greatest influences of my life.  Our Heavenly Father works this way, weaving both the blessings and the challenges into His loving purposes.  What a Father He is, and how blessed are all the children in Christ with whom He will live forever.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
(James 1:17)
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God."
(I John 3:1)

Weekly Memory Verse 
"Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me: for Thou art the God of my salvation; on Thee do I wait all the day."
(Psalm 25:5)
   
   

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