Psalm 139:13-15a – For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. (NIV)

My childhood was difficult and excruciatingly painful, to put it mildly. My older siblings often taunted me by saying that I didn’t belong in their family. My mother confirmed this by telling me that the father of me and my younger brother was not the same person that she was married to, but she wouldn’t say who. This brother drowned as a teen, so I grew up alone, not knowing just who my father was, while my siblings refused to give any information. Without any resolution of my parentage, it was especially problematic for me, medically.

In March, 1988, I was on my way home on a cold, wintry day to commit suicide, when the world stopped around me. No traffic came down that busy street, and I stood frozen to the ground as Jesus tried to talk me out of killing myself. As a result of that encounter with Jesus, I became a child of God.

After I was saved, Psalm 139 comforted me when I realized that God doesn’t make junk, and that despite my not knowing my parentage, He knew me “in my mother’s womb” as I was “made in the secret place”. In his 1963 book, The miracle of dialogue, the author, Reuel L. Howe, describes how, when we refer to God as our Father, it is innate in us to inter-relate the term to our own earthly fathers. Over time, I came to understand just how blessed I was not to know an earthly father, for in God, I now had a perfect Father, the only Father I would ever need. He is a Father Who will never leave us nor forsake us.

Hebrews 13:5b – God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (NIV)

Prayer: Father God, in the name of Your Son Jesus, thank You for being the only Father we will ever need, the kind of Father we wish we could have had. Help us to accept that our earthly fathers are both fallible and mortal. Thank You for Your promise of eternity with You in heaven. Amen.

Evonne Isaak

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada