A Father to the Fatherless

As I have been reflecting over the past two weeks after camp has ended one of the small group times really stuck out to me.  One morning at camp Pastor Godfrey's wife, who came to speak at camp because her husband was so busy, spoke about fathers.    She started off by saying that typically we don't talk about things that are sad like when people pass away but it's ok; we need to talk about it.  She went on to talk about her dad and the struggles she had growing up.  She always had a desire to be hugged by him and he rarely ever did that.  She transitioned in to talking about God as our Heavenly Father.  She told us that none of you are orphans in this room.  God is father to the fatherless.  In our small group time after the talk we went around to all 16 kids on my yellow team plus the couple of staff and we all shared about our fathers.  Every single one of those kids talked about how their dad passed away many years ago.  A good handful of them had no memory of their fathers.  And as they shared that I wondered if the others were just making up details about their fathers.  These young boys and girls are lacking fathers and father figures in their lives.  It broke my heart to think about my own father and how much I have learned from him and his heart and how much I love him and cannot imagine the past 30 years of my life without him.  I am so grateful that these kids have heard about their Heavenly Father.  He loves them better than an earthly father ever could, He protects them, He gives them advice, and He meets their needs.  My pray for the orphans who were at camp is that they would go home and allow that truth to really soak into their hearts and that they would get to know Jesus who came to show us the Father.