Family relationships can often be the source of our greatest joy—and greatest pain. But it wasn’t until recently that I understood the extent to which the brokenness in my family affected my relationship with God. Early this year I realized that I had been withdrawing from God. At the time I attributed it to my fear of loneliness and disappointment towards God for not providing my needs the way I felt he should. In his faithfulness, God soon revealed to me that it was much more than that. It happened during a prayer retreat.

God first gave me a picture of his love. It was a scene from the movie Anna and the King. There’s a little girl whose father is the king of Siam. He is meeting with the dignitaries in his palace when his daughter runs across the great room, through all the dignitaries, to jump on her dad’s lap and whisper something in his ear. He greets her and holds her in his arms to listen. Then he gets up and walks out of the room with her to the amazement of the dignitaries.

This image deeply moved me. I was amazed at the confidence of the little girl. She could just run to her daddy, the king of all Siam, in the middle of a big meeting. She knew she was so important to him that he wouldn’t even think about scolding her. This was a parable of what my relationship with my heavenly Father should be like, but in reality, this was not the case. I was not that little girl. I was a little girl intimidated by the dignitaries and the power of my Father’s presence. I hesitatingly step into the great room, looking for my Father. I see him , but I’m scared of intruding and not being wanted in the presence of such an important assembly. So I stand at the door, hoping that my Father will notice me and welcome me in, yet half expecting to be rebuked and sent away or, worse yet, ignored. But my Father doesn’t do that. He sees me before I see him . He senses the urgency in my demeanor and immediately gets up and walks toward me. Still, I stand there. He never looks away, and when he reaches me, he bends down and takes me in his arms to carry me back to his throne. He holds me as if he were delighted that I have come to visit. He listens to me as if I were the most important thing in all the world.

After that vision of intimacy and affection, I prayed that I would sit still and receive the blessedness of God’s response. I asked God to help me grow in the assurance of his love so that I would run into his presence and not hesitate. I realized that my response to God was very similar to my response and relationship with my earthly father. Though I have a father who deeply loves me, his own wounds and deep hurts have left scars that have kept him from knowing how to express his love to me. Because my dad was the closest earthly example of my heavenly Father’s love, I had attributed the weaknesses of my earthly father to the character of my heavenly Father.

During the retreat we had a time set aside for those who wanted special prayer. God made it clear to me that I was one of those in special need. I shared my struggle of withdrawing from God, and also shared how I had withdrawn my heart from my earthly father as well. I shared that I wanted to be like that little girl—never hesitating to run into her heavenly Father’s arms. I wanted God to heal me, to take the burden of my dad’s inadequacies away. I needed God to help me love my dad. As people prayed for me, there were tears, verses and visions that spoke to me of God’s extravagant love. I had never met many of those who prayed for me. Because these people did not know me, it was as if God himself was loving and crying over me. At that moment, my God became my Daddy, and has been ever since.

Hold close to your heart what God tells us in Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

—Tena Embly lives in San Diego and is a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkien. Her cat's name is Hobbit.