Daddy In Heaven Quotes

Yeah, she said she just can't wait for you and Daddy to get to heaven."...From that moment on, the wound from one of the most painful episodes in our lives, losing a child we had wanted very much, began to heal.

-I'm going to heaven! I replied. -What do you mean, you're going to heaven? -Let me pass. -And what will you do in heaven, my poor child? -I'm going there to kill God, who killed Daddy.

Afterward I always kiss her, my baby, and look into her clear eyes that know everything about me, and want me to be her daddy anyway.

And then I stand in front of God's Throne squinting up at His blazing glory and He says, 'You had your opportunities, boy. But did you listen? No. You went on heedlesly reading that garbagey magazine with pictures of naked girls in it. How juvenile! I gave geese more sense than that.' Please, God. I'm only fourteen years old. A teenager. Have mercy. Be loving. I was,' says God. 'For eons. And look at what it got me. You.' God turns in disgust, just the way Daddy does. 'Sorry, but I'm the Creator. I take it personally. There are slugs and bugs and night-crawlers I feel better about having created - I mean, there are sparrows - I've got my eye on one right now. Is that sparrow consumed with lust? No. He mates in the spring and that's the end of it. Consider the lilies. Do they think about lily tits all the time? No. They look not and they lust not, and yet I say unto you that you will never be half as attractive as they. Therefore, I say unto you, think not about peckers and boobs and all that nonsense and your Heavenly Father will see that you meet a good woman and marry her, just as I do for the sparrow and walleye - yea verily, even the night-crawler and the eelpout. But I've told you this over and over for nineteen centuries. And now, verily, it's too late. Time's up, buster. Lights out! Game's over!

In fact, I take the view that God, in his infinite wisdom, didn't bother to spring for two joints - heaven and hell. They're the same place, but heaven is when you get everything you want and you meet Mummy and Daddy and your best friends and you all have a hug and a kiss and play your harps. Hell is the same place - no fire and brimstone - but they all pass by and don't see you. There's nothing, no recognition. You're waving, "It's me, your father," but you're invisible. You're on a cloud, you've got your harp, but you can't play with nobody because they don't see you. That's hell.

Where there must be a choice, a girl will choose Daddy. Even if you are Mommy, you concede that this must be so: you remember when you were a girl, too.

Go ahead and point out my flaws and weaknesses to me. In doing so it's just something to get excited about! Knowing there's a flaw that my Heavenly Daddy wants to make beautiful is rather exciting!

What? I better ask before y’all have me sleeping in the house with a murderer, waking up dead!” What in the . . . “You can’t wake up dead,” I say. “Li’l girl, you know what I mean!” She moves from the doorway. “I’ll be waking up in Jesus’s face, trying to figure out what happened!” “Like you going to heaven,” Daddy mumbles.

Body Electric" Elvis is my daddy, Marilyn’s my mother, Jesus is my bestest friend. We don’t need nobody 'Cause we got each other, Or at least I pretend. We get down every Friday night, Dancin’ and grindin’ in the pale moonlight. Grand Ole Opry, we're feelin’ alright, Mary prays the rosary for my broken mind. (I said don't worry about it) [Chorus:] I sing the body electric, I sing the body electric, baby. I sing the body electric, I sing the body electric, Sing that body electric, Sing that body electric. I’m on fire, Sing that body electric. Whitman is my daddy, Monaco’s my mother, Diamonds are my bestest friend. Heaven is my baby, suicide’s her father, Opulence is the end. We get down every Friday night, Dancin’ and grindin’ in the pale moonlight. Grand Ole Opry, we're feelin’ alright, Mary prays the rosary for my broken mind. (I said don't worry about it) [Chorus:] I sing the body electric, I sing the body electric, baby. I sing the body electric, I sing the body electric, Sing that body electric, Sing that body electric. I’m on fire, Sing that body electric. My clothes still smell like you, And all the photographs say you’re still young. I pretend I’m not hurt And go about the world like I’m havin’ fun. We get crazy every Friday night, Drop it like it’s hot in the pale moonlight. Grand Ole Opry, feelin' all right Mary's swayin’ softly to her heart's delight. I sing the body electric, I sing the body electric, baby. I sing the body electric, I sing the body electric, Sing that body electric, Sing that body electric. I’m on fire, Sing that body electric. I sing the body electric, baby. I sing the body electric, baby. I sing the body electric, baby.

I take the view that God, in his infinite wisdom, didn't bother to spring for two joints - heaven and hell. They're the same place, but heaven is when you get everything you want and you meet Mommy and Daddy and your best friends and you all have a hug and a kiss and play your harps. Hell is the same place - no fire and brimstone - but they just all pass by and don't see you. There's nothing, no recognition. You're waving, "It's me, your father," but you're invisible. You're on a cloud, you've got your harp, but you can't play with nobody because they don't see you. That's hell.

George Bush junior doesnt have to sweat over getting into heaven, his daddy already bought the place.

What you mean he’s staying with us?” “Just what I said. He got in a little trouble in Garden Heights and needs to stay here.” She scoffs, and I know where Momma gets it from. “A li’l trouble, huh? Tell the truth, boy.” She lowers her voice and asks with suspicious, squinted eyes, “Did you kill somebody?” “Momma!” my momma says. “What? I better ask before y’all have me sleeping in the house with a murderer, waking up dead!” What in the . . . “You can’t wake up dead,” I say. “Li’l girl, you know what I mean!” She moves from the doorway. “I’ll be waking up in Jesus’s face, trying to figure out what happened!” “Like you going to heaven,” Daddy mumbles.

The way people are forever rolling their eyes to heaven and saying: “Perhaps it’s all for the best,” when they are perfectly dead sure it’s not, makes me enraged. Humility or resignation or whatever you choose to call it, is simply impotent inertia. I’m for a more militant religion!

I watched him as he lined up the ships in bottles on his deck, bringing them over from the shelves where they usually sat. He used an old shirt of my mother's that had been ripped into rags and began dusting the shelves. Under his desk there were empty bottles- rows and rows of them we had collected for our future shipbuilding. In the closet were more ships- the ships he had built with his own father, ships he had built alone, and then those we had made together. Some were perfect, but their sails browned; some had sagged or toppled over the years. Then there was the one that had burst into flames in the week before my death. He smashed that one first. My heart seized up. He turned and saw all the others, all the years they marked and the hands that had held them. His dead father's, his dead child's. I watched his as he smashed the rest. He christened the walls and wooden chair with the news of my death, and afterward he stood in the guest room/den surrounded by green glass. The bottle, all of them, lay broken on the floor, the sails and boat bodies strewn among them. He stood in the wreckage. It was then that, without knowing how, I revealed myself. In every piece of glass, in every shard and sliver, I cast my face. My father glanced down and around him, his eyes roving across the room. Wild. It was just for a second, and then I was gone. He was quiet for a moment, and then he laughed- a howl coming up from the bottom of his stomach. He laughed so loud and deep, I shook with it in my heaven. He left the room and went down two doors to my beadroom. The hallway was tiny, my door like all the others, hollow enough to easily punch a fist through. He was about to smash the mirror over my dresser, rip the wallpaper down with his nails, but instead he fell against my bed, sobbing, and balled the lavender sheets up in his hands. 'Daddy?' Buckley said. My brother held the doorknob with his hand. My father turned but was unable to stop his tears. He slid to the floor with his fists, and then he opened up his arms. He had to ask my brother twice, which he had never to do do before, but Buckley came to him. My father wrapped my brother inside the sheets that smelled of me. He remembered the day I'd begged him to paint and paper my room purple. Remembered moving in the old National Geographics to the bottom shelves of my bookcases. (I had wanted to steep myself in wildlife photography.) Remembered when there was just one child in the house for the briefest of time until Lindsey arrived. 'You are so special to me, little man,' my father said, clinging to him. Buckley drew back and stared at my father's creased face, the fine bright spots of tears at the corners of his eyes. He nodded seriously and kissed my father's cheek. Something so divine that no one up in heaven could have made it up; the care a child took with an adult. 'Hold still,' my father would say, while I held the ship in the bottle and he burned away the strings he'd raised the mast with and set the clipper ship free on its blue putty sea. And I would wait for him, recognizing the tension of that moment when the world in the bottle depended, solely, on me.

What in the . . . “You can’t wake up dead,” I say. “Li’l girl, you know what I mean!” She moves from the doorway. “I’ll be waking up in Jesus’s face, trying to figure out what happened!” “Like you going to heaven,” Daddy mumbles.

My little brother's greatest fear was that the one person who meant so much to him would go away. He loved Lindsey and Grandma Lynn and Samuel and Hal, but my father kept him stepping lightly, son gingerly monitoring father every morning and every evening as if, without such vigilance, he would lose him. We stood- the dead child and the living- on either side of my father, both wanting the same thing. To have him to ourselves forver. To please us both was an impossibility. ... 'Please don't let Daddy die, Susie,' he whispered. 'I need him.' When I left my brother, I walked out past the gazebo and under the lights hanging down like berries, and I saw the brick paths branching out as I advanced. I walked until the bricks turned to flat stones and then to small, sharp rocks and then to nothing but churned earth for miles adn miles around me. I stood there. I had been in heaven long enough to know that something would be revealed. And as the light began to fade and the sky to turn a dark, sweet blue as it had on the night of my death, I saw something walking into view, so far away I could not at first make out if it was man or woman, child or adult. But as moonlight reached this figure I could make out a man and, frightened now, my breathing shallow, I raced just far enough to see. Was it my father? Was it what I had wanted all this time so deperately? 'Susie,' the man said as I approached and then stopped a few feet from where he stood. He raised his arms up toward me. 'Remember?' he said. I found myself small again, age six and in a living room in Illinois. Now, as I had done then, I placed my feet on top of his feet. 'Granddaddy,' I said. And because we were all alone and both in heaven, I was light enough to move as I had moved when I was six and in a living room in Illinois. Now, as I had done then, I placed my feet on top of his feet. 'Granddaddy,' I said. And because we were all alone and both in heaven, I was light enough to move as I had moved when I was six and he was fifty-six and my father had taken us to visit. We danced so slowly to a song that on Earth had always made my grandfather cry. 'Do you remember?' he asked. 'Barber!' 'Adagio for Strings,' he said. But as we danced and spun- none of the herky-jerky awkwardness of Earth- what I remembered was how I'd found him crying to this music and asked him why. 'Sometimes you cry,' Susie, even when someone you love has been gone a long time.' He had held me against him then, just briefly, and then I had run outside to play again with Lindsey in what seemed like my grandfather's huge backyard. We didn't speak any more that night, but we danced for hours in that timeless blue light. I knew as we danced that something was happening on Earth and in heaven. A shifting. The sort of slow-to-sudden movement that we'd read about in science class one year. Seismic, impossible, a rending and tearing of time and space. I pressed myself into my grandfather's chest and smelled the old-man smell of him, the mothball version of my own father, the blood on Earth, the sky in heaven. The kumquat, skunk, grade-A tobacco. When the music stopped, it cold have been forever since we'd begun. My grandfateher took a step back, and the light grew yellow at his back. 'I'm going,' he said. 'Where?' I asked. 'Don't worry, sweetheart. You're so close.' He turned and walked away, disappearing rapidly into spots and dust. Infinity.

That is the way Connecticut goes, in a series of Marcelle waves; and Lock Willow Farm is just on the crest of one wave. The barns used to be across the road where they obstructed the view, but a kind flash of lightning came from heaven and burnt them down.

The way people are for ever rolling their eyes to heaven and saying, 'Perhaps it's all for the best,' when they are perfectly dead sure it's not, makes me enraged. Humility or resignation or whatever you choose to call it, is simply impotent inertia. I'm for a more militant religion!

Have you ever heard a newborn cry as it awakes from a nightmare?” the Long Walker asked. Petty was too stunned by its question to reply. “A newborn, only a few days old,” it went on. “They have nightmares, but not as you would understand. Their minds are unformed, as was your own at that age. A newborn baby can still see the world behind the world, you see? The world where my daddy lives, and me and a few others like us. They can still see us. That’s why they scream as they do.

My daddy was gone. My daddy was in heaven. He was never, ever coming back.

Sleep, Daddy, sleep, but may you still hear our childish laughter in highest Heaven.

Daddy.” I looked up towards my Heavenly Father in His garden. “Daddy, what is happening?” “Your wounds are the wounds of a great battle, beloved. “The glass that falls from your head is trauma. “The more you play, the more you rest as a little child in My presence, and the more healing of your body and your mind takes place on Earth. “Every time shards of jagged glass fall from your head it means that the trauma is falling from your mind. “Beloved, many in My Church do not yet understand how to heal those that have been wounded in battle. “That is why it is so important that every wounded warrior runs directly to Me. “For in this present Church age it is sometimes I, and I alone, who can bring the healing balm that is essential to heal the wounds of this present age.

Then she spoke with Yolanda, her eldest child, with whom she'd been shopping all afternoon for an Easter dress. "Mommy, I'm not going to cry," Yoki said resolutely. "I'll see him again in heaven." But something was bothering her, something clearly nagged at her young conscience. "Should I hate the man who killed my father?" she asked. Coretta shook her head. "No, darling, your daddy wouldn't want you to do that.

Heaven bent over and fingered Nita’s chin higher. “Little girl, when I tell you to do something, you say ‘yes, ma’am.’ You’re not going to disrespect me in my own house. You can pull that with your daddy but not me. Got it?

There’s a part of me wishes that Daddy would sleep his life away. A part of me that hopes that after all these years his drinking will finally catch up to him. That one day he’ll just go to bed and never wake up. But who am I kidding with that dream? It’s the people like Daddy, the wicked ones who go on living forever. It’s like God puts people like Daddy on earth on purpose. Making them a test for the good people in the world. If you can withstand what the good Lord throws at you, by staying true to your goodhearted self, and persevering through all of the obstacles thrust before you, then you’ve earned a spot by his side in Heaven. I look forward to that day. I look forward to the day where I’ll be smiling down from Heaven, wondering what made my daddy become so sick, twisted, and rotten. I look forward to the day when I can forgive him for everything he’s done and watch him from a cloud up in Heaven, praying for his damned soul, while he’s doused in flames, and burning in hell.

And now you know it, don't you, Daddy? The only things worth seeking are treasures in heaven. And those treasures are our acts of love. People loved me, cared for me, and prayed for me not because of what I looked like or how important I was. My weakness brought out the best in people. I asked God why so many people loved me so much, and God said, `The most beautiful stones are the ones that have been tossed by the wind and washed by the water and polished to brilliance by life's strongest storms.' That is why, Daddy. That is why I was born.

Daddy,” she said, “do you think you could buy me a book?” “A book?” he said. “What d’you want a flaming book for?” “To read, Daddy.” “What’s wrong with the telly, for heaven’s sake? We’ve got a lovely telly with a twelve-inch screen and now you come asking for a book! You’re getting spoiled, my girl!

You are not meant for heaven, says the Devil. Maybe it's because you love no one but yourself. Or maybe it's because you cultivate beauty instead of goodness. And don't use your father as an excuse. Plenty of people have worse fathers and have made something of their lives instead of acting hoity-toity and waiting for some prince to rescue them. Then again, your father is so noxious that I'm not surprised you wear the stench of his sins, like your mother did. Good woman on the surface, but to marry a man like your father... Well, that requires the kind of soul that ends in my clutches. I checked on her before I came. Somewhere in the fifth circle and on her way down. Still thinks she belongs in heaven, poor lass. Those kinds never fare well. The pain is twice as bad when you resist it. What I'm saying is that your soul is going to come to me one way or another like Mummy's did and like Daddy's will, so might as well play my game and try to snatch more time up here where you can keep pretending you're better than everyone else and your angels are guarding you. Do we have a deal? Lovely. Now tell me. What is my name?

What you do when you git mad? she ast. I think. I can't even remember the last time I felt mad, I say. I used to git mad at my mammy cause she put a lot of work on me. Then I see how sick she is. Couldn't stay mad at her. Couldn't be mad at my daddy cause he my daddy. Bible say, Honor father and mother no matter what. Then after awhile every time I got mad, or start to feel mad, I got sick. Felt like throwing up. Terrible feeling. Then I start to feel nothing at all. Sofia frown. Nothing at all? Well, sometime Mr. —— git on me pretty hard. I have to talk to Old Maker. But he my husband. I shrug my shoulders. This life soon be over, I say. Heaven last all ways. You ought to bash Mr. —— head open, she say. Think about heaven later. Not much funny to me. That funny. I laugh. She laugh. Then us both laugh . . .

I thumped her on the back, picked her up and dropped her on top of her dungarees. “Put them pants on,” I said, “and be a man.” She did, but she cried quietly until I shook her and said gently, “Stop it now. I didn’t carry on like that when I was a little girl.” I got into my clothes and dumped her into the bow of the canoe and shoved off. All the way back to the cabin I forced her to play one of our pet games. I would say something—anything—and she would try to say something that rhymed with it. Then it would be her turn. She had an extraordinary rhythmic sense, and an excellent ear. I started off with “We’ll go home and eat our dinners.” “An’ Lord have mercy on us sinners,” she cried. Then, “Let’s see you find a rhyme for ‘month’!” “I bet I’ll do it … jutht thith onthe,” I replied. “I guess I did it then, by cracky.” “Course you did, but then you’re wacky. Top that, mister funny-lookin’!” I pretended I couldn’t, mainly because I couldn’t, and she soundly kicked my shin as a penance. By the time we reached the cabin she was her usual self, and I found myself envying the resilience of youth. And she earned my undying respect by saying nothing to Anjy about the afternoon’s events, even when Anjy looked us over and said, “Just look at you two filthy kids! What have you been doing—swimming in the bayou?” “Daddy splashed me,” said Patty promptly. “And you had to splash him back. Why did he splash you?” “ ’Cause I spit mud through my teeth at him to make him mad,” said my outrageous child. “Patty!” “Mea culpa,” I said, hanging my head. “ ’Twas I who spit the mud.” Anjy threw up her hands. “Heaven knows what sort of a woman Patty’s going to grow up to be,” she said, half angrily. “A broad-minded and forgiving one like her lovely mother,” I said quickly. “Nice work, bud,” said Patty. Anjy laughed. “Outnumbered again. Come in and feed the face.

I went to a party, And remembered what you said. You told me not to drink, Mom So I had a sprite instead. I felt proud of myself, The way you said I would, That I didn't drink and drive, Though some friends said I should. I made a healthy choice, And your advice to me was right, The party finally ended, And the kids drove out of sight. I got into my car, Sure to get home in one piece, I never knew what was coming, Mom Something I expected least. Now I'm lying on the pavement, And I hear the policeman say, The kid that caused this wreck was drunk, Mom, his voice seems far away. My own blood's all around me, As I try hard not to cry. I can hear the paramedic say, This girl is going to die. I'm sure the guy had no idea, While he was flying high, Because he chose to drink and drive, Now I would have to die. So why do people do it, Mom Knowing that it ruins lives? And now the pain is cutting me, Like a hundred stabbing knives. Tell sister not to be afraid, Tell daddy to be brave, And when I go to heaven, Put Daddy's Girl on my grave. Someone should have taught him, That its wrong to drink and drive. Maybe if his parents had, I'd still be alive. My breath is getting shorter, Mom I'm getting really scared. These are my final moments, And I'm so unprepared. I wish that you could hold me Mom, As I lie here and die. I wish that I could say, "I love you, Mom!" So I love you and good-bye.

As I write this, I am still waiting for Steve to walk through the door. His sarong still hangs on the bed. His toothbrush is in the bathroom. Reality is sinking in more and more. Bindi and I have a lot of heart-to-heart talks. These seem to help her, just like when she was younger and lost a special koala named Wilson. Wilson died of renal failure and is buried in our backyard. I felt thankful that over the years, I had set the foundation of faith with Bindi. “As hard as it is to understand, there was a reason for all of this,” I told her. “One day it will be clear.” Robert is like a pitiful puppy, and he still waits patiently for his daddy to come home from heaven. I hadn’t been prepared for how devastated Robert would be. Some nights he sits in the bathtub and cries. “I want my daddy,” he says, over and over. It absolutely tears my heart out.

DAY 137 Laser Tag “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” ROMANS 8:31 A few years ago my daughter was invited to a laser tag birthday party. She was little, and the laser tag vest and gun were huge, which made it hard for her to play. The first time through, she didn’t do well at all. She was an easy target for the more experienced players, and she got shot—a lot! She was pretty discouraged, but before the next round started, one of the dads handed me a vest and said, “Go get ’em, Dad.” I got the message. I followed close behind my daughter and picked off any kids foolish enough to come near her. By the end of the round, the kids knew that she was no longer an easy target. Her daddy was there, and he was not to be messed with. It was awesome. Her score that round vastly improved, bringing a big smile to her face. When we go into the arena alone, it’s easy to get picked on, singled out, and told that we are destined to fail. But when we go into battle with our heavenly Father’s protection and covering, everything changes. Not only do we have a chance to stay alive, we have a guaranteed win. PRAYER Thank you, Father, for fighting for me, keeping me safe, and helping me come through as a victor. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

When I was first called as a General Authority, we lived on a very small plot of ground in Utah Valley that we called our farm. We had a cow and a horse and chickens and lots of children. One Saturday, I was to drive to the airport for a flight to a stake conference in California. But the cow was expecting a calf and in trouble. The calf was born, but the cow could not get up. We called the veterinarian, who soon came. He said the cow had swallowed a wire and would not live through the day. I copied the telephone number of the animal by-products company so my wife could call them to come and get the cow as soon as she died. Before I left, we had our family prayer. Our little boy said our prayer. After he had asked Heavenly Father to “bless Daddy in his travels and bless us all,” he then started an earnest plea. He said, “Heavenly Father, please bless Bossy cow so that she will get to be all right.” In California, I told of the incident and said, “He must learn that we do not get everything we pray for just that easily.” There was a lesson to be learned, but it was I who learned it, not my son. When I returned Sunday night, Bossy had “got to be all right.” This process is not reserved for the prophets alone. The gift of the Holy Ghost operates equally with men, women, and even little children. It is within this wondrous gift and power that the spiritual remedy to any problem can be found. “And now, he imparteth his word by angels unto men, yea, not only men but women also. Now this is not all; little children do have words given unto them many times, which confound the wise and the learned” (Alma 32:23).

The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence celestial, glistering on Dublin stone there under starshiny coelum. God's air, the Allfather's air, scintillant circumambient cessile air. Breathe it deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which thou hast fructified with thy modicum of man's work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their daddies, Theodore. Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with butcher's bills at home and ingots (not thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up! For every newbegotten thou shalt gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See, thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy Darby Dullman there with his Joan? A canting jay and a rheumeyed curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tell thee! He is a mule, a dead gasteropod, without vim or stamina, not worth a cracked kreutzer. Copulation without population! No, say I! Herod's slaughter of the innocents were the truer name. Vegetables, forsooth, and sterile cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding! She is a hoary pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions, hayfever, bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious attacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins. A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music! Twenty years of it, regret them not. With thee it was not as with many that will and would and wait and never do. Thou sawest thy America, thy lifetask, and didst charge to cover like the transpontine bison. How saith Zarathustra? Deine Kuh Trübsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters. See! it displodes for thee in abundance. Drink, man, an udderful! Mother's milk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk too of those burgeoning stars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, punch milk, such as those rioters will quaff in their guzzling den, milk of madness, the honeymilk of Canaan's land. Thy cow's dug was tough, what? Ay, but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this but thick rich bonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum!

The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence celestial, glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny coelum. God’s air, the Allfather’s air, scintillant circumambient cessile air. Breathe it deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which thou hast fructified with thy modicum of man’s work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their daddies, Theodore. Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with butcher’s bills at home and ingots (not thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up! For every newbegotten thou shalt gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See, thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy Darby Dullman there with his Joan? A canting jay and a rheumeyed curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tell thee! He is a mule, a dead gasteropod, without vim or stamina, not worth a cracked kreutzer. Copulation without population! No, say I! Herod’s slaughter of the innocents were the truer name. Vegetables, forsooth, and sterile cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding! She is a hoary pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions, hayfever, bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious attacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins. A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music! Twenty years of it, regret them not. With thee it was not as with many that will and would and wait and never—do. Thou sawest thy America, thy lifetask, and didst charge to cover like the transpontine bison. How saith Zarathustra? Deine Kuh Trübsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters. See! it displodes for thee in abundance. Drink, man, an udderful! Mother’s milk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk too of those burgeoning stars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, punch milk, such as those rioters will quaff in their guzzling den, milk of madness, the honeymilk of Canaan’s land. Thy cow’s dug was tough, what? Ay, but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this but thick rich bonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum!

During the season, they saw each other and played together almost every day. At the aunt's request, seconded by Professor Valérius, Daaé consented to give the young viscount some violin lessons. In this way, Raoul learned to love the same airs that had charmed Christine's childhood. They also both had the same calm and dreamy little cast of mind. They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends; and their favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors, like beggars: "Ma'am..." or, "Kind gentleman... have you a little story to tell us, please?" And it seldom happened that they did not have one "given" them; for nearly every old Breton grandame has, at least once in her life, seen the "korrigans" dance by moonlight on the heather. But their great treat was, in the twilight, in the great silence of the evening, after the sun had set in the sea, when Daaé came and sat down by them on the roadside and in a low voice, as though fearing lest he should frighten the ghosts whom he loved, told them the legends of the land of the North. And, the moment he stopped, the children would ask for more. There was one story that began: "A king sat in a little boat on one of those deep still lakes that open like a bright eye in the midst of the Norwegian mountains..." And another: "Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was golden as the sun's rays and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes. She wheedled her mother, was kind to her doll, took great care of her frock and her little red shoes and her fiddle, but most of all loved, when she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music." While the old man told this story, Raoul looked at Christine's blue eyes and golden hair; and Christine thought that Lotte was very lucky to hear the Angel of Music when she went to sleep. The Angel of Music played a part in all Daddy Daaé's tales; and he maintained that every great musician, every great artist received a visit from the Angel at least once in his life. Sometimes the Angel leans over their cradle, as happened to Lotte, and that is how their are little prodigies who play the fiddle at six better than fifty, which, you must admit, is very wonderful. Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the children are naughty and won't learn their lessons or practice their scales. And, sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children have a bad heart or a bad conscience. No one ever sees the Angel; but he is heard by those who are meant to hear him. He often comes when they least expect him, when they are sad or disheartened. Then their ears suddenly perceive celestial harmonies, a divine voice, which they remember all their lives. Persons who are visited by the Angel quiver with a thrill unknown to the rest of mankind. And they can not touch an instrument, or open their mouths to sing, without producing sounds that put all other human sounds to shame. Then people who do not know that the Angel has visited those persons say that they have genius. Little Christine asked her father if he had heard the Angel of Music. But Daddy Daaé shook his head sadly; and then his eyes lit up, as he said: "You will hear him one day, my child! When I am in Heaven, I will send him to you!" Daddy was beginning to cough at that time.

She fell asleep within minutes, unaware that the rain that had been falling since evening had turned to sleet, or that the roads were becoming impassable. As she slept, she began to dream, but instead of a continuous scene, it consisted of images flashing through her mind, like looking at old pictures in an album. Cat was sitting at the kitchen table. Her mother was standing beside her, laughing as she set a birthday cake in front of her. There were four candles on her cake, and her daddy was taking a picture. “Smile,” he’d said. She looked up just as the flash went off. She was still blinking from the flash when the image shifted. It was cold. The blowing wind burned her skin. She was at a cemetery, staring down at a small, flat marker. Cat couldn’t read, but somehow she knew it bore hermother’s name. She could hear her father crying. It scared her worse than the fact that her mother had gone away. “Daddy…where did she go?” “Heaven.” “Is it far?” “Yes.” “Can we go, too?” She never heard his answer, because the image shifted again. This time, she was being led through a long series of hallways. The smell of orange oil from wood polish burned her nose. The sound of her footsteps echoed on the tiled floors. Yesterday she’d been in the hospital. She’d asked to go home. But someone had told her she couldn’t go home because there was no one left to take care of her. The horror of that knowledge had frightened her so much that she’d been afraid to ask what came next. She walked through an open door as a woman said her name. The woman took her by the hand, and they walked away. She couldn’t see the woman’s face. She never remembered the faces, and it didn’t matter, because they never stayed the same.

looking at her but not really seeing her, and his baby girl sure as heaven not seeing her daddy either

Miranda was still trying to process the intrusion. “Just tell me one thing--how do you guys get away with sneaking out at night? My mom would have a fit!” “Right.” Parker’s grin turned scornful. “Like my mom and dad ever know if I’m there or not.” Ashley was totally unconcerned. “Oh, we just tell them we’re going to the tree house. They never check on us there.” “What’s the tree house?” Miranda wanted to know. “Well, when we were little, Gage’s daddy built a tree house for the three of us in his backyard. We used to have a secret club. And we’d play over there, and hide from people, and pretend we were knights in a castle.” “Gage and I were knights,” Roo corrected her. “You always had to be rescued.” “Well, I liked the way Gage threw me over his shoulder and carried me down from the tower.” “Gage did that?” Clasping his hands over his heart, Parker sighed. “My hero.” Gage ignored him. “We used to camp out in that tree house at night.” Ashley nibbled a potato chip. “In fact, we still like sleeping together over there.” Parker wiggled his eyebrows and gave Miranda a stage whisper. “Very kinky.” “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Parker--not that kind of sleeping together.” Ashley paused for a second. “It is just Gage, after all.” Gage stared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Oh, nothing.” Ashley plopped down on the bed next to Miranda. “Just that we love and respect you so much, we wouldn’t dream of taking advantage of you.” “Sometimes I dream of you two taking advantage of him,” Parker said seriously. “It’s one of my favorite fantasies.” Gage tried unsuccessfully not to look embarrassed. “You need a life.

Every time my daughter smiles or calls me daddy, those are the sweetest sounds of my life. It is heavenly joy.

Actually, it’s quite the opposite. She will have to go to bed earlier,” I say, sipping my coffee at the table with the same nonchalance. Faith gasps and her hand, holding toast to her mouth, flings to the table. I continue, “The teenage body needs more rest to function properly with all the new hormones raging.” Hezekiah pads down the steps, handsome in blue slacks and a striped polo shirt. “Daddy, is this true?” Faith says. “Do I have to go to bed earlier after my birthday?” Hezekiah catches my eye and furrows his brow in seriousness. “Absolutely. When I turned thirteen, my bedtime went from nine o’clock to seven o’clock.

Natalia lied. She knew that man was his daddy because she was sleeping with him first, but now wasn’t the time for her to divulge that piece of information. “Aight.

Daddy looking down, I know he see me blowin’ up My grandma would be so proud Up in Heaven, Yamborgini, know my brother see me I'ma make my bro proud

That was the hardest part, missing you. I think that's why I could never bring myself to leave. I always thought, What will Amy do without me? Funny how in the end it was the other way around. I suppose all parents feel that way. But it's different when it's you. ..."It will be all right, I promise." "How do you know?" ...Because that's what heaven is, said Amy. It's opening the door of a house in twilight and everyone you love is there. She hugged him tightly to her. "It's time for you to go home, Daddy. I've kept you as long as I could, but you to go now. They're waiting for you.

And what of the lie that both you and I would be unsafe if you were allowed to love? Both you and I and all of our beloved progeny would perish if you weren’t able to kill on command? Daddy, my fierce protection of you has given lie to the statement that you are the triumphant protector and I would be prey. Daddy, these words between us now tell the story of our history – how we were once, and are still, prey to bigger animals, fiercer doctrines, hulking harbingers of doom that drape themselves across the sun, threatening. We are both needed to restore the balance between heavens and earth. We are both capable of this magic, this feat.

Jessica had gone to church all her life, in her frilly pinafores and white gloves, but when she was young it was only another place she had to go. Home, school, church. She didn’t really learn what faith was until after her father died, when she stood on her toes to see what was in the rose-colored casket. She didn’t know what to expect, why she’d been so anxious to take her place in the line at the front of the church, clinging to her mother’s hand. There, inside, was the grim, washed-out face of Daddy. Daddy was going to stay in this box? And they were going to bury this box in the ground? He had to be somewhere else, like her mother kept saying. That wasn’t him at all. On that day, Heaven kept Jessica’s world from caving in. David, somehow, lived without believing in a better place. And yet he could still wake up in the morning and carry out his day and go to sleep without being frozen awake with fears of death, of darkness, of nothing. She didn’t understand how he could do that. She tried, telling herself one night This is all, there is nothing after this, but she felt swallowed by the vast barrenness. She thought of her father’s bones, crumbling to black dust inside that beautiful casket beneath the ground. Maybe David had a point. Religion was a crutch, a way people rationalized away their pain in life, like the slaves yearning for a better existence. A denial. When there is no fear of death, David had told her once, there is no need for religion.

I raised my eyes to Heaven, praying for strength. Please God, help me so I don’t beg to lick his ass. Amen.

You have a decision to make. If being really hard on yourself isn’t producing in you the life you had hoped for, you must make a choice to proceed a different way. Make a choice to rest. Believing the truth and choosing to stay in this place of rest can be challenging when conflicting thoughts come streaming through our minds. When that happens, we often want to beat ourselves up for having such shocking thoughts. God is not shocked at all and He can handle it.

Every day you must hear His voice—especially what He thinks about you. You are “altogether lovely” to your Father.16 Resting in His delight of you is integral to walking in the true greatness of who you are and not settling for less.

You’re not going to change yourself for God. Stop that program right this minute. Talk about wasted time and energy on a program that doesn’t work! Don’t tell God how you’re going to change yourself for Him. Instead, determine right now to know who God says you are. When you start thinking about yourself the right way, you’ll start living that way. That’s the genuine transformation God promised for your life—the one the Holy Spirit is graciously leading you into.

When you and I forget who we are as princes and princesses who are heirs of our Father’s kingdom, we can make some very poor decisions in life. But this never changes our Father’s affection for us as His children. When we beat ourselves up for our mistakes and demote ourselves to the role of a servant, even believing that it’s a spiritual thing to do so, we are inadvertently agreeing with the enemy’s assertion that we are good-for-nothing down-and-outs. Nothing could be further from the truth! Agreeing with the enemy’s lies does nothing to bring us even one inch closer to the Father.

He says forcefully, so it leaves an indelible imprint on your mind, “You are Mine! You have always been Mine and you will always be Mine. Never forget that! Come and share My happiness—not someday, but right now. I restore you to your rightful place as My favored child.” Some of you have never heard such words from a parent. Take it in. Believe it. This is real. If God is touching your heart right now, linger in this place with Him for a while.

Papa continually extends His hand and invites all of His children into His good and perfect plan for their lives, even in the midst of our poor choices. Grace in its most raw and pure form, unmarred by religion’s death grip, almost sounds wrong or too good to be true. But the more you hear the truth of genuine grace, the more you are set free to enjoy your Papa who so enjoys you!

In this era of the new covenant, God handed over the duties of judging to His Son, Jesus. The Father judges no one; He has entrusted all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. (John 5:22–23 NJB) Jesus, who came to extend grace and mercy to the world, chose to take upon Himself the verdict of “guilty” so that we who are found in Christ would never be judged by Him.

We are to be so filled with the Holy Spirit, so filled with the resurrection power of Jesus, and so filled with the love of the Father that it gushes out of us—the transformational presence of God effortlessly overflowing to the world around us. Jesus said to His followers, “Freely you have received; freely give.”1 Therefore, the key is not so much in the giving away as it is in being a proficient receiver, because we can’t give away what we don’t have.

Jesus continually speaks words of affirmation and encouragement and love to you, evoking your beauty, because you and Jesus are one. So whatever He does to you, He is doing to Himself. Think about it. Jesus will never speak words to tear you down or degrade you in any way because He would be bringing Himself down with you. What He does to you He is doing to Himself, because the moment you said yes to Jesus, you were eternally joined with Him in a love covenant that has no end. This is why Paul says in Romans 8 that the only one who has the power to judge you is the One who died for you—Jesus—and He is completely and in every way for you. This is also why Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, He is faithful still, for He cannot disown His own self.

Dawson: “I was married to your mom for a long time. And I didn’t know how you would feel about me dating someone.” “It’s okay, Daddy,” Harlow says. “Mommy is in heaven. God is her boyfriend now.” “I think she’d date Jesus. He’s younger.” Ava says. “Yes, Jesus,” Harlow agrees. “Mama and Jesus. But Mama would make him shave his beard.” I laugh loudly envisioning Whitney ordering Jesus around.

demonized just because you are sad about your loss. It is human to feel sadness when somebody dies. Too often some well-meaning person tries to comfort those who have lost a mate or loved one, and he or she says, "Well, Jesus knows what's going on. You're really blessed to know they are in heaven." While their words may be true, at that moment of grief you don't feel blessed. It takes time to work through loss. When my daddy died, my mother had a significant time of adjustment to go through. She loved Jesus with all her heart, but here on Earth, Daddy was everything to her. I mean, Mama even ironed Daddy's socks! She laid his clothes out. She loved him, and he loved her. When he was gone, Mama didn't know what to do with herself. She had to find another outlet for her service, and she didn't get there the next day.

You were never an afterthought to God. You’ve always been on the heart and mind of your Father, who had plans for you to be here on the earth at this time and place in history before He even created the world. Just how important and special are you to God, whose creation of the world is secondary to His creation of you? He created you with the full intent to take you to “the high places of blessing” in Him and to saturate and soak you in His love and grace for all eternity. His mind is made up about you. He has already settled on you as the focus of His love. He made this decision before you were born, before you had the choice to be loved in this way. So you’d better just get used to it—the sooner the better!

Wow! The Father’s love and pleasure for His Son was announced publicly. Jesus’ identity was completely wrapped up with the certainty of His Father’s approval, which is why He was so easily able to openly declare to all, “The Father loves Me!”3 He wasn’t trying to impress anyone with that statement, and He certainly didn’t need to convince His Father. He knew what He knew to the core of His being, and was totally secure in it. “My Daddy loves Me!

Every one of us needs that direction from a caring Father. And He’s more than happy to provide it. His covenant promise to us is “I will work everything—absolutely everything—for your good because I love you.”4 God invites us to see the world and our own history from His perspective. He says, Child, climb up onto My lap and see the whole picture as I see it with the sealed-up victory of your life in plain view! I encourage you to take some time with Papa right now, sitting on His lap and asking Him to review your history with you—including what you perceive to be your failures—from His perfect perspective.

God, your Father, did not create you to punish you. He created you to love you. Just in case you skipped right over that, I want to tell you again. You were created, not so that God could find ways to crush you for your disobedience, but so that He could find as many ways as possible to lavish His deep affection upon you. For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:16–17 NIV)

You’ve always been God’s choice. If that doesn’t blow your circuits, I don’t know what will. God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in God’s presence before the creation of the world. (Ephesians 1:4 CEB). You were never an afterthought to God. He did not create the earth and then think, Hmmm … I guess I should put people on this planet to complete the project. No, you were on His mind and in His heart before He created this earth. He didn’t create you for the purpose of simply populating the earth. He created the earth for you to rule over and enjoy with Him.

My child, I have called you by name and I have purposely chosen you to be Mine! I have always wanted you to be with Me, and I want to be with you forever. I like you! I like you a lot. I like everything I made about you—the color of your eyes, your infectious laugh, the quirks that are uniquely yours—everything! I like hanging out with you, whether we’re doing something or doing nothing together. I enjoy looking at you—you make Me smile. Let’s enjoy life a whole lot more together.

The Holy Spirit will teach you how to continually agree that you are right with God all the time, not just when you feel like you are. You are secure in Him. Believing that like a little child is your rest. You could sit in a chair and do absolutely nothing today and God would be pleased with you beyond measure—thrilled to call you His son or daughter. Does He have things for you to do? Sure. But until you know His deep pleasure for you apart from anything you do or don’t do, you will still be striving to earn His acceptance. Only by resting in the completion of all that Christ purchased for you, especially that you are perfectly right with your Father, will your life begin to blossom effortlessly and impact others with His love in ways that are transformational for them. Righteousness by faith realised means unlimited friendship with God. (Romans 5:1 TMT)

The enemy doesn’t want you to know the truth that you are never separated from God’s heart of love.2 Since Jesus already disarmed the devil by stripping him of his sham authority,3 the only card the enemy has left to play is the deception card. If you believe one of his deceiving lies, he gains power over you with it. Your champion, Jesus, came to shine the light of His glorious truth into you, incapacitating the enemy’s lies. Jesus continuously reveals the truth of the Father’s heart by reminding you of who you really are as a son or daughter of the King.

One practical application of agreeing with God’s goodness is choosing to disagree with your own assessment of yourself and your circumstances whenever it doesn’t match up with the truth of God’s goodness.

Inside the inner core of God’s heart were the thoughts of you and me, which transcended into a deep longing to be a heavenly Daddy to all mankind.

.Ephesians 4:1 in the Mirror Translation says it like this: As one captive in the Lord, I urgently appeal to you therefore, with reference to your original identity, to conduct your life in such a way that your every move bears witness to the weight and value of who you really are. Paul isn’t saying, “Act like a Christian.” He’s saying, “Know who you are.” Your original identity is who God says you are. Paul spent the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians going over your true identity in Christ line by line. Only then does he say, “Now that you know who you really are, be true to your real self.

Do you know what His answer is? I’m not interested. In fact, if you persist in trying to earn God’s love and acceptance through performance, God will make sure that it doesn’t work and that you get good and tired. (It may take years or even decades for you to completely exhaust yourself.) Do you know why? He can’t reward your efforts of trying to be good to earn His approval or it would encourage you to keep doing it!

Some babies aren’t meant to stay down here with their mommas.  And their daddies.   Some babies are angels.  And angels are meant to be in heaven.

My job is to tell people what God thinks of them and how amazing they are, until they believe it. The better grasp I have on how much my Father adores me as His son, the greater my capacity is to tell people what God thinks about them and how astounding they are in Christ. Once they get it, they begin to soar into their destinies as they were created to do, no longer bound by the chains of legalism

If you are like a kicking, screaming child having a temper tantrum of sorts, He will hold you until you get it all out and finally fall limp and exhausted into His strong arms that never let you go. Even depression or suicidal thoughts and actions cannot keep Him at a distance. Do you think when you are at your worst and when you need Him the very most He would choose that time to pull away from you? It won’t happen, because Papa God is 100 percent committed to you and to loving you through every moment of your life. Whether you feel Him or not, the reality of His presence and His devotion to attending to you never changes.

Your heavenly Papa puts amazing dreams inside of you, and He has every intention of helping you fulfill your dreams. It’s His joy to do so. In fact, His dreams for you are so big, they are completely beyond you without His help. That’s purposeful, because His plan is to be the supplier of absolutely everything you need.

My grand-daddy died fightin for it, my Dad was wounded in the war, my brother served in Korea and I did my duty in Nam. We've paid our dues and we done all we could for this country, but we didn't do it to turn America into no nigger heaven, pardon my saying so. And we'll do it again if we have to against those Commie rats and anybody else that don't like the way things are. That's the American way.' 'Amen,

Intentionally or involuntarily, your earthly and spiritual fathers will lead you the perfect Father. You might not recognize it, but even when they fail, they create the perfect scenario for you to run into your Heavenly Daddy’s arms. When they reject you, He will receive you. When they fail at meeting you, He will open up His schedule. When they miscommunicate with you, He will share His heart of love for you and, His heart of love for them.

The nearest living human beings ever get to Heaven, Daddy says, the “angel age” between nine and thirteen, before their voices break and “all hell breaks out in their bodies.

Lou appeared in the doorway and posed, pink from chin to shoelaces. "Do I look ready for the date, Daddy?" Reese about dropped Brandon. A sudden vision of Lou ten years later branded terror in his mind. Good heavens, he needed to get his guns prepared for prospective suitors as soon as possible.

Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. —Matthew 6:32 (KJV) How am I going to keep doing this, God?” I shot the prayer up under my breath. The stock market had been frenetic, and the global economy was stoking the fire. As an investment adviser, my job was to manage my clients’ savings as well as their expectations. While I love what I do, sometimes the stress of it all becomes overwhelming. As the closing bell rang, I decided to call it a day. At home, I was eager to spend a little time with our six-month-old baby girl. “Daddy’s got you, Mary Katherine!” I swooped my daughter up in the air and smiled as I looked into her bright hazel eyes. She cooed back at me with a big, toothless grin. I could feel my stress melt away as she giggled and squealed. Before long, her happy cheer turned into a fussy whine. I knew this meant “Daddy, I’m sleepy.” It was nap time. I fed her a bottle and gently patted her back until she burped. Then I rocked her for a bit, and soon she was sound asleep. “There are few things as peaceful as a sleeping baby,” I said to my wife, Corinne, as I walked into the kitchen. “So how was work?” she asked, sensing my weariness. “Stressful.” She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Brock, you just spent an hour taking great care of Mary Katherine. God has been taking care of you for forty years! Do you think He is going to stop now?” Suddenly, my burden felt a bit lighter. Daddy’s got you, Mary Katherine, I thought to myself, and my Father in heaven has me too. Father, sometimes even a grown-up needs a daddy. Thanks for being mine. —Brock Kidd Digging Deeper: Phil 4:19; 1 Jn 3:1

I’ve never found heaven, for example, a particularly interesting place to go. In fact, I take the view that God, in his infinite wisdom, didn’t bother to spring for two joints—heaven and hell. They’re the same place, but heaven is when you get everything you want and you meet Mummy and Daddy and your best friends and you all have a hug and a kiss and play your harps. Hell is the same place—no fire and brimstone—but they just all pass by and don’t see you.

Get up rejoicing in a day that someone missed. While you slept someone gasped a final sigh and slipped from time into eternity without seeing this day. But you are still here. This is God’s gift to you. From the God who cares enough to give the very best, He gave you today. Enjoy it. It is yours. There will never be another moment like this one.

I believe in the One who is there with each of us in every storm we go through, who loves us unconditionally and unwaveringly. He walks with us through the dark times and dances with us to celebrate the best moments. He is what every father is meant to be, the very model of fatherhood: tender, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love. Whenever He needs to be a little tough on us, it is always for our best. He is not just our heavenly Father--He is Abba, our Daddy. When circumstances are at their worst, He does not leave us to face them alone. He rolls up His sleeves and, without hesitation, dives into the middle of every mess in which we find ourselves. He is there with us in the middle of every one of our storms. He is the Eye of the Storm.

The way people are forever rolling their eyes to heaven and saying, “Perhaps it’s all for the best,” when they are perfectly dead sure it’s not, makes me enraged. Humility or resignation or whatever you choose to call it, is simply impotent inertia.

China wasn't one of them. She was the one among them that ruined his hate for them, and for that he resented her. Miss Chona. She wasn't Miss China when they were kids. She was just Chona, his sister's best friend, the odd girl with the limp who walked to school with Bernice, the two walking behind him, which was fine with him in those day. But then life happened. He'd gone to jail after high school, and when he returned home, the die was cast. Chona got married and went back to being white and Bernice had all those kids and got saved to the Lord and inherited his daddy's house--which he should've gotten, being his father's only son.

Thank heaven I don’t inherit any God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I wish Him. He’s kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding—and He has a sense of humor.

Then Daddy said, “Don’t let the devil win! In Me is life. In the river do you remember the life? In the waterfall is life, remember? In the plants is life. Jesus came to give life and life more abundantly! Speak life to every sickness, disease, disorder—life! Don’t let the devil win. Jesus had paid the price for life! Speak life to the blood, speak life! Don’t let the devil win!

Mommy… I just want to die and go to Heaven and be with Jesus where there’s no pain.” A ripple of cold shock went through me. “Annabel…” I groped for the right response. “If you… if you went to Heaven, then you wouldn’t be with me and Daddy. There’d be a big hole in my soul. I would be so sad.” “No, Mommy,” she said without missing a beat, “you would kill yourself and go with me.” “Anna…” No words came. The statement was so blunt, so matter-of-fact and without hesitation, such a dark sentiment from such a bright spirit. Sickened, stunned with sadness, I realized: She’d been thinking about it, pragmatically considering all the angles. She had it all figured out.

We also ate well in the kitchen, and I found that I had inherited my father's palate and appreciation of good food. Our cuisine at home always been rather basic, even in the days when we had a cook, and I became fascinated with the process of creating such wonderful flavors. "Show me how you made that parsley sauce, those meringues, that oyster stew," I'd say to Mrs Robbins, the cook. And if she had a minute to spare, she would show me. After a while, seeing my willingness as well as my obvious aptitude for cooking, she suggested to Mrs Tilley that her old legs were not up to standing for hours any more and that she needed an assistant cook. And she requested me. Mrs Tilley agreed, but only if she didn't have to pay me more money and I should still be available to do my party piece whenever she entertained. And so I went to work in the kitchen. Mrs Robbins found me a willing pupil. After lugging coal scuttles up all those stairs, it felt like heaven to be standing at a table preparing food. We had a scullery maid who did all the most menial of jobs, like chopping the onions and peeling the potatoes, but I had to do the most basic of tasks- mashing the potatoes with lots of butter and cream until there wasn't a single lump, basting the roast so that the fat was evenly crisp. I didn't mind. I loved being amongst the rich aromas. I loved the look of a well-baked pie. The satisfaction when Mrs Robbins nodded with approval at something I had prepared. And of course I loved the taste of what I had created. Now when I went home to Daddy and Louisa, I could say, "I roasted that pheasant. I made that apple tart." And it gave me a great rush of satisfaction to say the words. "You've a good feel of it, I'll say that for you," Mrs Robbins told me, and after a while she even sought my opinion. "Does this casserole need a touch more salt, do you think? Or maybe some thyme?" The part I loved the best was the baking. She showed me how to make pastry, meringues that were light as air, all sorts of delicate biscuits and rich cakes.

Cleaning My Gun" You and I went deeply, you and I went far and wide You and I went gently, you and I went for a ride But somewhere in the ashes of this burning lovers' game Somehow you decided that you would find another flame And as you lay sleeping with your eyes softly shut I'll be cleaning my gun Cleaning my gun When heaven or hell takes this life I'll be done You never lied to me, never said you'd be around for long But somehow I believed that you would be my only one Cause you know where I'm going, and you know where I'm coming from But now this train is slowly coming to its final destination And as you lay sleeping with your eyes softly shut I'll be cleaning my gun Cleaning my gun When heaven or hell takes this life I'll be done Cleaning my gun Cleaning my gun When heaven or hell takes this life I'll be done And as you lay sleeping with your eyes softly shut Know it ain't me that you're dreaming of Mother always told me love would save me from myself Daddy always said that love would take me straight to hell Sometimes they were righteous and sometimes they were oh so wrong Cause I'm cleaning my gun I'm cleaning my gun When heaven or hell takes this life I'll be done Cleaning my gun Cleaning my gun When heaven or hell takes this life I'll be done When heaven or hell takes this life I'll be done I'll be done Songbook (2011)

When I woke five days later, I discovered Daddy had refused to take me to a hospital and had instead left it to God to decide my fate. And as he’d done so many times before, God had decided to torture me. He let me live.

death has the timing of the world’s worst comedian and I think he was right. When people die, it’s natural to regret how we treated them when they were alive. Heaven knows, there are dozens of things I wished I’d asked my mammy and daddy when they were around; times I’d like to wipe clean away. Things I wish I had or hadn’t said. It’s the worst kind of guilt, because it’s completely irreparable.

Faith is not just about the leap, its also about the destination and this world was never meant to be my home.

There is one Father who will never give up on us. There is One out there who never leaves you and who would love to have a relationship with you. This Daddy wants to hear all about your day, the good and the bad times. I am describing God, the Dad in Heaven who loves you.

I know your father is waiting for me with open arms,’ she said, ‘and my Mommy and Daddy, too.’ She was right about that, it turned out. Waiting around for more people is just about all there is for People in Heaven to do.

Of all the names we have for God, maybe the most appropriate for those moments is the Aramaic word Abba, which most closely translates to “Daddy.” Abba is the God we cry out to when we are at our smallest, our most vulnerable. Abba is the God whose heart we break, the God who weeps for us and says, “Daddy’s here.

Choose unconditional love. Love God unconditionally. Stop blaming Daddy in the Sky when bad things happen. Keep your faith. Go to work.

I have a complicated spiritual history. Here's the short version: I was born into a Mass-going Roman Catholic family, but my parents left the church when I was in the fifth grade and joined a Southern Baptist church—yes, in Connecticut. I am an alumnus of Wheaton College—Billy Graham's alma mater in Illinois, not the Seven Sisters school in Massachusetts—and the summer between my junior and senior year of (Christian) high school, I spent a couple of months on a missions trip performing in whiteface as a mime-for-the-Lord on the streets of London's West End. Once I left home for Wheaton, I ended up worshiping variously (and when I could haul my lazy tuckus out of bed) at the nondenominational Bible church next to the college, a Christian hippie commune in inner-city Chicago left over from the Jesus Freak movement of the 1960s, and an artsy-fartsy suburban Episcopal parish that ended up splitting over same-sex issues. My husband of more than a decade likes to describe himself as a “collapsed Catholic,” and for more than twenty-five years, I have been a born-again Christian. Groan, I know. But there's really no better term in the current popular lexicon to describe my seminal spiritual experience. It happened in the summer of 1980 when I was about to turn ten years old. My parents had both had born-again experiences themselves about six months earlier, shortly before our family left the Catholic church—much to the shock and dismay of the rest of our extended Irish and/or Italian Catholic family—and started worshiping in a rented public grade school gymnasium with the Southern Baptists. My mother had told me all about what she'd experienced with God and how I needed to give my heart to Jesus so I could spend eternity with him in heaven and not frying in hell. I was an intellectually stubborn and precocious child, so I didn't just kneel down with her and pray the first time she told me about what was going on with her and Daddy and Jesus. If something similar was going to happen to me, it was going to happen in my own sweet time. A few months into our family's new spiritual adventure, after hearing many lectures from Mom and sitting through any number of sermons at the Baptist church—each ending with an altar call and an invitation to make Jesus the Lord of my life—I got up from bed late one Sunday night and went downstairs to the den where my mother was watching television. I couldn't sleep, which was unusual for me as a child. I was a champion snoozer. In hindsight I realize something must have been troubling my spirit. Mom went into the kitchen for a cup of tea and left me alone with the television, which she had tuned to a church service. I don't remember exactly what the preacher said in his impassioned, sweaty sermon, but I do recall three things crystal clearly: The preacher was Jimmy Swaggart; he gave an altar call, inviting the folks in the congregation in front of him and at home in TV land to pray a simple prayer asking Jesus to come into their hearts; and that I prayed that prayer then and there, alone in the den in front of the idiot box. Seriously. That is precisely how I got “saved.” Alone. Watching Jimmy Swaggart on late-night TV. I also spent a painful vacation with my family one summer at Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Heritage USA Christian theme park in South Carolina. But that's a whole other book…

It’s time, once and for all, for the Church—those who believe in the saving sacrifice of Jesus on their behalf—to move past a fear-based life of wondering if we will make it into our Father’s heavenly kingdom. We’re already in! We’re wasting precious days and years of our lives being fearful of something that Jesus already took care of for us. Fear keeps us in total bondage, never fully stepping out to be the amazing sons and daughters of the King we truly are. The moment you said yes to Jesus, you became one with Him. You are already seated with him in heaven. That’s not made-up stuff—that’s the real deal! At some point we are going to have to trust the goodness of our Father, who took it fully upon Himself to both make and keep the most outrageous promises this world has ever known.

My daddy built it with my mommy,” Clara declares, looking proudly over at her father. “Mommy doesn’t live here, though. She lives in Heaven.