Tell Him

When I was little (from the moment I could formulate a sentence), I had a phrase I used to say in the face of adversity and by adversity I mean, if someone wasn’t nice to me at nursery or Sunday school, if an adult said something I didn’t like or if my siblings did something to annoy me. Whoever it was who caused me such distress, I would say fiercely and bursting with emotion utter my biggest threat – “I will tell my daddy of you and you will know”. It was my final warning, my ultimate defence, my secret weapon, my solution to any problem.

When my dad had either picked me up from school, got back from work or I’d run to whatever room he was in and had found him, I would tell him all about what that person had done to upset me and that would be it. I never followed up, never checked back to see if he had dealt with it, I would soon forget about said problem and I would carry on my important tasks of feeding my toy baby, pacing around with my Pikachu backpack and watching Tom and Jerry.

I don’t do that anymore, not just because my dad passed away when I was six but because it would be very strange for a 24 year old to go around telling people that she’ll tell her dad about how much they upset her, although I do wish I could still go and tell him when things go wrong.

It really hit me though when my mum reminded me of the fact that I used to do this a lot. What struck me is just how much I truly believed that the solution to any problem I had was to tell my dad, that I never thought anything was too big or too small for him to handle, that I trusted him completely so much so that I didn’t need to confirm whether he was going to make my problem the top of his priority list or check-in to make sure he had dealt with the person who wronged me. I knew all I had to do was tell him and everything would be ok, you could say I had full faith in him.

The bible mentions the importance of childlike faith, Christian or not you will have heard people refer to God as our ‘Heavenly Father’. If you have been reading my blog lately you know I’ve been writing about trusting God or should I say my lack of trust in God. I think trust flows out of faith but I’ll write about that in a different blog.

I’m realising more and more that my relationship with my ‘Heavenly Father’ should look more like the relationship with my earthly father. If only every time adversity hits, I would face my problem and say with full confidence, “I will tell my Heavenly Father of you and you will know”. Completely assured of the fact that telling God is my ultimate defence, my secret weapon, my solution to any problem because nothing is too big or too small for Him to handle and that He will always make me a priority. Unlike my earthly father, God is still with me and always with me, the only One that is present from my birth through to my death, I don’t need to wait for Him to come back from work, don’t need to run and find Him, He never leaves my side, my ever-present help in time of need – if only I would just tell Him.