a daughter

truly understanding what it means to call God, Father.

For the longest time, i called God Father without truly understanding what truly understanding what it meant. I knew the songs, i knew the prayers, i even spoke in tongues and clearly heard from God. But deep inside there was still an inexplicable distance which was probably fueled by religion. I loved the Lord but I didnt know how to approach Him as daughgter…it sounded foreign to me because my earthly father was hardly there so how can I possibly trust God as Father?

Towards the end of 2024, God began dealing with me about identity in a way that changed my relationship with Him forever. One day, almost gently, He revealed a word to me: Daughter. It sounds so simple now. Almost ordinary. But for me, it was not. Because how do you learn to be a daughter when you were never truly raised by a father? How do you understand the safety, tenderness, and security of daughterhood when that language feels foreign to your heart?

For most of my life, I approached God more like someone trying to earn closeness than a child already loved. I knew how to strive. I knew how to perform. I knew how to be disciplined. But resting in love? Receiving God as Father? That was harder.

And then came the sentence that shook me:

“To first be My disciple, you have to become My daughter.”

I did not fully understand it then, but I do now.

Because many of us know how to serve God without ever learning how to belong to Him. We know how to work for Him. How to speak about Him. How to obey Him out of fear. How to chase spiritual growth. But we do not know how to sit with Him without anxiety. How to trust Him when life is not going how we hoped. How to believe we are loved even when prayers seem unanswered. We know God as Lord, but not as Father.

And so began my journey into daughterhood.

Ironically, shortly after God revealed this to me, my life became harder. Things did not improve overnight. In fact, it felt like everything became heavier. Doors closed. My heart became tired. I wrestled with disappointment, confusion, grief, and anger toward God.

I remember thinking:
How could You reveal something this beautiful to me, yet allow my life to look like this?

I expected daughterhood to feel comforting immediately. I thought if God was truly my Father, things would become easier, clearer, lighter. But instead, He began undoing me. Now, I understand that sometimes the Father’s love is not revealed through immediate rescue, but through transformation. There were things in me that needed to break. Ways of thinking that needed to die. Versions of myself that could not follow Him into deeper intimacy.

And quite frankly, I needed to suffer. Not because God is cruel or that He enjoys watching His children struggle. But because suffering has a way of exposing what comfort hides.

It reveals our fears. Our idols. Our wounds. Our need for control. Our distorted understanding of love.

I needed to wait.
I needed to learn.
I needed to unlearn.

I needed to discover that God’s goodness was not dependent on whether He moved according to my timeline and that realization changed me. If God had answered every prayer exactly when I wanted, if He had opened every door immediately, if He had removed every painful season the moment I cried about it, I honestly would not be the person I am today. I would still be impatient. Still deeply fearful. Still trying to control everything. Still viewing God through the lens of disappointment rather than trust.

The waiting reshaped me.

And that is why the name The Potter’s Daughter means so much to me.

Because pottery is process. Clay does not shape itself. It yields to the hands of the potter. Sometimes gently. Sometimes painfully. Sometimes through pressure it does not understand. Yet the hands never leave the clay. That is what this season of my life has felt like.

I am still being shaped.
Still learning.
Still healing.
Still discovering what it means to be loved by God as His daughter.

My relationship with Him is not where I want it to be yet, and maybe that honesty is important too. Sometimes we think spiritual maturity means arriving somewhere permanent. But intimacy with God is ongoing. It stretches across a lifetime.

It is about returning to Him. Trusting Him. Allowing Him to reshape me.
Believing He is still good even when I do not understand the process. And maybe that is what daughterhood truly is: not having all the answers, but learning to rest in the hands of the Father anyway.

I am still clay in His hands.

But I finally know I belong to Him.