Hold Me Father has been a big part of my life for 20 years! This song was written off the back of a preach about the Father heart of God which challenged and changed my incorrect perception and beliefs about God. I had always seen Him as a distant being; a man on a throne with grey hair and a big stick full of high expectations shouting out rules to us, His servants; a King with a short fuse that was just millimetres away from explosion point, and looking to discipline and reprimand every mistake I made. BUT this preach blew those perceptions out of the water and dismantled the lies I had believed. I discovered that God is a Father, my Father, and that He loves me, likes me, is for me, believes in me, is proud of me, has a plan and purpose for my life and that He enjoys seeing me flourish! I also realised He longs to hold me, be close to me and make me feel safe. Just like any good earthly dad would.
When you have believed your whole life that God is angry with you, and that you need to be afraid of coming close to Him in case He loses His temper, it is a massive step to choose to want to come close to Him, and to trust that He won’t hurt you. The whole concept of coming close to someone requires bravery and courage. I had often tried to avoid spending one on one time with God because I was afraid of Him, and this song was my attempt to break that fear and declare the new reality I had found to be true about Him. It was a big step to be vulnerable and to ask God to come close and to want Him to hold me. I always knew I needed God to save me, but I hadn’t realised I had needed God to be a Father to me, so this was a defining moment of understanding that actually, He is all I want, and in Him I find everything I need. The song was also an attempt to give Father God time and space to speak to me, to impact me, to recalibrate my thinking, to love me, to hold me and show me that all I need is Him amidst all the chaos in life, and to trust His bigger plans for me even if I didn’t understand or fully see what He was doing with me. The Father’s love is the one thing we need more than anything else in this life.