Who Is Your Father: who do you run too?

                         I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

     God does not take you in as a foster child.  He is your true father in every sense of the word.  Those of us that had a limited experience of a natural father (myself included) have this hole in us that longs to be filled up.  I marveled over the years of my growing up those of my friends that had a father that was interested in his son's growth and friendship.  To be molded by one who had life's experiences that could be passed on.  
     My father for whatever reason, left my mother and brother and I when I was young.  For whatever reason, I don't really know, the details are sketchy and too many years have gone by to fit the pieces of the puzzle together to gain a good picture.
     I was fortunate:  My grandfather stepped in at just the right time.  Whether he was willing at the time I do not know.  He had lived his life and was at the verge of retirement when I came to know him.   Fifty-five years my senior yet over 20 years he became the one I trusted.  Today I bear his name out of honor and his lineage is carried on in my family name.  
   So what is this place I came too that hungered for this type of relationship?
    I'll tell you; it was adoption. A substitution of fatherhood but a reality of the real thing.  In this place was peace, security and love and an established home for my chance to grow up.
   After spending many years of just wanting to be in my grandfather's sphere of influence it was time to leave.
     Then reality hit.  I was alone in being, on my own and subject to my own ways and efforts to gain a place in this world. No longer under a covering that was someone else's. So what did I gain in being independent for the first time. Uncovered, exposed to decisions of my own making? Trouble!
     Yes, I stepped right into life as we are supposed to. And with it came all the cares of the world heaped up and standing as a wall of water rushing in with no barriers to keep it back.  
      This was a good thing...because now I needed to find my place and strength to survive this.  Where do I go? 
     Abba, Father in Aramaic, that is what I found. The true father of us all.
As the beginning of this blog states Jesus told his disciples that when he left, he would not leave them as orphans, but would send the comforter. What a term!
I think of the Peanut's character Linus and his blanket! But that is analogus  or comparable.  Looking for the hole to be filled up in the absence of what is going to soon be missing...Jesus.  
       After three years of teaching, love, healings, wisdom unbounded and friendships made in eating and living together, he was leaving them! Their Lord and savior who adopted various men to carry on his teachings left them, but sent another:  The Holy Spirit, the one who would remind them " of all that I said."  Just like a Dad.......to live in them forever never, abandoned again or fatherless.