I Need Daddy

"Please mom, Please! I need daddy to cuddle me" This is what Bubs woke up in the middle of the night saying. He was scared and was having bad dreams. When you were young, there was just something about being held in Daddy's arms. Not that Mommies aren't special, but their hugs are different. They are warmth, love, security and cuddles. But Daddy's hugs are strength, safety and comfort. When we're scared, Daddy's arms keep us safe from the monsters in the closet and help us deal with the monsters in life.

Then we grow up. We become the Mommies and Daddies. Life gets harder and more challenging. The problems more significant and deep. Suddenly, you aren't the one asking to be held and protected. You are the one being asked. Someone actually needs you for strength and security. Where do you find it to give to them? Life is demanding all the strength you have, just to hold together and now someone needs it from you. Not just once, but everyday. They need to see you being strong so they know they can face the challenges of life too.

Yet, the strength is there. It is within us. We underestimate the strength we have. The resiliency. The testing and trying we experience is to bring out that strength. I spent Sunday watching the great movie classic The Ten Commandments. Though not necessarily historically accurate, it is uplifting the way it shows Moses being prepared to lead the people. As he is banished to die in the desert by Ramses, voice over says the following:

"Into the blistering wilderness of Shur, the man who walked with kings now walks alone. Torn from the pinnacle of royal power, stripped of all rank and earthly wealth, a forsaken man without a country, without a hope, his soul in turmoil like the hot winds and raging sands that lash him with the fury of a taskmaster's whip. He is driven forward, always forward, by a god unknown, toward a land unseen... into the molten wilderness of sin, where granite sentinels stand as towers of living death to bar his way. Each night brings the black embrace of loneliness. In the mocking whisper of the wind, he hears the echoing voices of the dark... Moses! Moses! Moses! Moses! Moses! Moses!

His tortured mind wondering if they call the memory of past triumphs or wail foreboding of disasters yet to come or whether the desert's hot breath has melted his reason into madness. He cannot cool the burning kiss of thirst upon his lips nor shade the scorching fury of the sun. All about is desolation. He can neither bless nor curse the power that moves him, for he does not know from where it comes. Learning that it can be more terrible to live than to die, he is driven onward through the burning crucible of desert, where holy men and prophets are cleansed and purged for god's great purpose, until at last, at the end of human strength, beaten into the dust from which he came, the metal is ready for the maker's hand."

When we need strength we must remember that, "It is in giving that we receive." Our strength will come by giving strength to others. One day we will look back across the desert of affliction, we will realize just how far we have come by the hand of God, our eternal Father who gives us the strength we need.