Daddy’s Got You

Daddy’s Got You

As kids go, I was only an average risk taker. But I was ready for almost any challenge that was preceded by these three words: Daddy’s got you!

I heard them as I rode down the driveway on my training-wheel-less bike for the first time or leaped (eyes and nose squeezed shut) into the deep end of the swimming pool. The words weren’t audible at other fear-inducing events, but I was still certain of them when I stood at the free throw line in junior high basketball games, bawled my way through a newly broken heart at sixteen, and watched my parents drive away from my college dorm at the beginning of my freshman year.

Knowing that someone who loves you has your back can go a long way in making you brave.

I wonder how many things I might have never tried without my dad’s encouraging presence. I wonder how often I would have waited in the shadows and hoped for someone else to lead if he hadn’t told me I could. My dad who often made me brave did the bravest thing for me when I turned thirteen. He wrote me a letter (delivered with a long-stemmed red rose) that celebrated my short life with typical parental enthusiasm and ended it with words something like this:

Your mother and I will always be proud of you, but it is your Maker you must answer to, and yourself you will face in the mirror each day. Many things may change, but one will remain constant: your dad’s love for his daughter.

Early on, Dad set me free from pleasing him so that I might fully follow Jesus and the dreams he had placed in my very young heart. That is why it has been no great leap of faith for me, in the days since, to believe the bold promises and commands from my heavenly Father. He says he will never forsake me. I count on that. He says I am justified and have peace with him. I rest there. He says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, so I am confident this is so. His promises make me better and braver than I would otherwise be. My Abba Father’s got me. I am so grateful he has.

Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers overflow it.

Song Of Solomon 8:7, NASB