The Girl Who Cried Abba Father

I found a poem written by Brennan Manning. I wrote it down on a little piece of notebook paper years ago. Every time I read I can hear my heart just calling out "Abba Father."

The road that I have traveled is pockmarked by disastrous victories and magnificent defeats, soul-diminishing successes and life-enhancing failures. Season of fidelity and betrayal, periods of consolation and desolation, zeal and apathy are not unknown to me. And there have been times...

when the felt presence of God was more real to me

than the chair I am sitting on;

when the Word ricocheted like broken-backed

lightning in every corner of my soul;

when a storm of desire carried me to places I had

never visited.

And there have been other times. . .

when I identified with the words of Mae West: "I

used to be Snow White--but I drifted";

when the Word was as stale as old ice cream and

as bland as tame sausage;

when the fire in my belly flickered and died;

when I mistook dried up enthusiasm for gray-haired

wisdom;

when I dismissed youthful idealism as mere

naivete;

when I preferred cheap slivers of glass to the pearl

of great price.

If you relate to any of these experiences, it is time to reclaim your identity as Abba's Child.