At times we may have not had the best relationship out there, but at the end of the day my dad was my hero. Me and him made the greatest team anyone had ever seen. When it came to sports, school, church, and everything else, we did it together. I looked up to him with a tremendous amount of respect (as any son does to his dad). No one will ever love me the same same way he did, and likewise, I'll never love someone the same way I loved him.
But then one day I got a phone call from my mother. "Nate you need to come home from school, your dad is sick and this time it looks like he won't survive."
I went to the hospital to see my dad that day. When I walked into his room in the ICU I almost didn't recognize him. His body pale with over a dozen different machines and tubes hooked up to him. The room was left empty for me to say my goodbyes to my life long teammate. Tears rolling down my face, my hand clutching his hand, all I could say was "I love you."
That next day my dad, Darrin Ray Stevens, died.
I thought that was it for me. No one to love me the way a only a dad can. No one to give me that unique and special "fatherly" advice. No one to ever look at and say "I love you Dad." No one to look at me and say "I love you son." No one.
But I was wrong.
When I lost my earthly dad, I discovered my heavenly Father. God reached me in ways I never thought were possible.
We always hear that God is our Father and He looks upon us as children, but we never really stop to think and dwell on that truth. At different stages in our lives we tend to discover an entirely new level of God's love and an entirely new revelation about it as well. For instance when you get married you see how much you love your spouse and then you realize God loves you just like that and more. Also, when you one day become a parent you will look upon your child with so much love and devotion and then you will realize that God loves you the same exact way and loves you even more.
For me, I never truly felt like a child of God until I lost my dad. I lost my dad but found my Father. God looked at me and essentially said, "You are not left on earth fatherless, I am your Father. You are not alone."
What I'm trying to say in all this is that God loves you in such a way that even if I had the right words to describe it to you, it still would not do it any justice. God is our Father and that means we are His children. Which means He has a type of unwavering love and dedication to us that we can never truly understand. I still haven't yet fully grasped hold of this thought myself.
So consider this:
When you're broken, defeated, tired, depressed, suicidal, doubtful, hateful, torn-up, or scared, remember that there is a Father in heaven that loves you so much that He sent His son, Jesus, to die for you so you wouldn't have to be alone.
I felt alone at my dad's funeral. I felt hateful. I definitely felt broken. But then I found my heavenly Father who took me into His arms and has never let me go since.
