Daddy's Girl

Abba, Father, I want to thank you. I want to thank you with all of my heart for being here for me all the time, for loving me and cherishing me. I take it for granted so much, but when I think about the things in life that are bringing the people I care about down, I get discouraged. Thank you for being me loving Heavenly Father, always.
And thank you also for sending me a wonderful earthly father. I've seen so many of my friends grow up without a father in their lives, or with a crappy father who doesn't love and hold his little girl like he should. That makes me sad, because I love the relationship I have with my Daddy, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. He has never abused me, he has constantly been here for me, though he may be a little too logical and non-emotional and a fairly demanding parent, I know he loves me. He's authoritative, yet kind. He hugs me when I have a bad day, he helps me with my math homework instead of yelling at me for a failing grade, he gives me guidance and direction as I go through so much stress and uncertainty about the future, and I could go on all night about the things he's done, the good constantly outweighing the bad, though he's not a perfect person.
So I thank you so much God, for giving me an earthly father that so greatly models you, so that I can know that I'm a beautiful girl, in his eyes and in yours, and that I am worth something.
I pray that you'll help all of the girls in the world who don't have such a connection to their earthly fathers see that they have a Heavenly one who loves them unconditionally and will never leave or forsake them, that they are perfect in your eyes.

I love my Daddy here on Earth,
and I love you Heavenly Father.
Amen.

Discouragement

It's been kind of rough lately.
Only one of my friends that I see on a daily basis is a good Christian person, the rest cuss and drink and smoke and make bad jokes. (I don't hate them because of this, I truly love them. That's why I hang around them. But it gets frustrating when they talk about parties and sex and crap like that all the time.)
My math class (one of the 5 classes I'm taking) gives me so much homework that I spend an average of 7 hours per day working on it.
I just found out my ex-boyfriend had been cheating on me. That's happened before, no big deal, some people are just jerks. But he was the one who remained my friend for four years, he was the one who constantly picked me up when I was down, made me feel like someone special. The note he wrote in my yearbook brings me to tears. I've always considered him a good, respectable, southern guy, he's even a Marine now. I never though he would be capable of something like this.
A friend of mine is pregnant, and she just keeps having bad things happen to her, she's almost constantly in tears and she's been so stressed, it seems like nothing is going right. I just want people to be happy, is that too much to ask?

But I shouldn't complain right?
So many of the world's children are living in and dying because of poverty.
Young girls in some third world countries don't go to school because they have to walk 3.5 miles to get water, which weighs about 50 pounds.
Thirteen year old girls are kidnapped and forced into sex slavery.
So many people in so many countries are living on less than $2.50 per day.
Children are constantly being orphaned and abandoned.
There is so much pain in the world, and I feel discouraged everyday because of the miniscule problems I face.

I tell myself this and the next day I feel hardly any different, still discouraged, still hopeless, still sluggish.
I walked upstairs to the Sanctuary of my church last night, right after our youth lesson was over, the first words I heard were:

"Discouragement is inevitable when we try to face our problems on our own strength."

Maybe that's how people in poverty stricken places can have so much faith, they rely on God because they literally have nothing. I have so much, and sometimes I take that for granted and forget to rely on my Father; I think I can handle it on my own instead.

"Time for a milestone, time to begin again
Reevaluate, who I really am
Am I doing everything to follow Your will
Or just climbing aimlessly over these hills

Whatever You're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos, but somehow there's peace
And it's hard to surrender, to what I can't see
But I'm giving in to something heavenly"
~Sanctus Reel