There’s been a deep well inside of my life for quite some time now thats been running dry. Full of disappointment, fear, and isolation, I’ve never gone near it, too afraid to discover what could be laying deep within after all these years of neglect and
abandonment. I’ve been able to get on by without this well, searched the nearest places in my lifetime for some provision of water and provision I found.

I thought I’d found the answer to all my needs, perfected all the cracks and edges of my life. Created some theories, some advice, wise words to live by. But I never laughed, I lived through time wary of everything. I thought I found God, I had first heard of Him, rejected him, drew closer to Him, heard Him, prayed to Him, and relied on Him. I wasn’t ready to drop my valuables in my hand in order to take only His. But then I did, because I was tired of an emotional life that rode between the worst and the good.

And so He showed me the well. He let me hear the sound of its emptiness with my own tears.

Love.

There’s a power behind our words that I have only recently discovered. It was like learning language all over again. I have graduated school, had my share of heartaches and laughter, written well on exams and essays but to grasp the meaning behind a few words I have never truly learned.

Father.

To speak it in English; no problem, to hear it, okay. Its something I’d become accustomed to, explained plenty of times in my lifetime as questions came up about my family. The role of the word in society, no problem. I’d cross examined it plenty of
times in my classes.

父親. 愛
and in chinese? Its a side of me I learned to push aside as irrelevant in years of  american society. I had never possessed much of my cultural inheritance, it was a part of my life that was just not relevant.

我的父親愛我,
I heard, and I spoke I still get shivers hearing that from my own lips, spoken to my ears. The more He told me, the more I wept, the greater I laughed.

The first few drops down the well, were painful to hear. It only reminded me of the emptiness it held, of the lack, the thirst and desperation inside my mouth and my heart, for water, for a Father.

Then something broke. The well was cracked, the well was useless, it was only a shell, an opening for the water. And out came living water, endless, limitless, streaming, pouring over and into me joy, relief, and peace.

- His daughter