"papa"

It's how she begins talking with him.

"Papa."

Not in a pretentious manner, but with uncomplicated humility.

Her address carried the rich sound of familiarity. Closeness. Intimacy.

She stood behind the man who was faced with the uncertainty of surgery. And we bowed low with our hands laid on him.

She prayed.

"Papa..."

And it was if the Spirit of God swum into the room and hovered over us as she carried our brother before our Father with her words. Words of clarity and healing. Personable. Hospitable. Theological. Deeply pastoral. Simple. Restorative.

After a year of journeying through the life of Jesus, it was in the closing moments of our final retreat where I experienced the heart of Jesus more fully than ever before.

Because a servant of God drew on a deep well of relationship with her Papa to usher restoration into the brokenness before her. Like Jesus did.

"I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them." (John 17:26)