A FATHER'S TRAUMA

Can you imagine the trauma of a father, whose son wants to draw him a picture and so goes into his room behind closed doors and works furiously, frantically, relentlessly. But no matter what he produces, he always feels like it's not good enough. He says, "My Father loves me so much, he's been so good to me, and this is all that I can come up with? This is the best I can do??" He compares it to the art that hangs upon the walls of his dad's bedroom, and even to the cartoons and artwork in the New York Times that his father reads, and sees in his heart that his feeble attempts simply do not measure up. "My father is worthy of so much more than this," he says. And so, paper after paper, sheet after sheet, he draws and crumples, draws and crumples, draws and crumples ... and after hours of the same, he breaks down in tears, violent sobs, because he sees that his best will never be enough. Can you imagine the trauma of the father who sees his son needlessly running himself into the ground to do something that he never asked him to do? Can you imagine the trauma of the father who watches the child-like love that began his son's quest being transformed into destructive insecurities, inadequacies and feelings of failure? A quest that began in love came to destroy that very love that once drove it.

Is it possible that God actually loves me and not just the One I am clothed in?