A Love Song for Bobby Long

go see this movie.

if you grew up in a small town in the south, go see this movie.

if you've ever wanted to know what it's like to grow up in a small town in the south, see this movie.

if you've never been to the south, don't care to, and hate small towns, go see this movie.

go see (rent) this movie.

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there's a familiar ache in my soul tonight. the ache to know my father.
there he sits right in front of me, still a stranger, and me afraid to get to know him as if introductions have yet to be made.

i long to hold his hand as we walk down the street and he says remember when...

except i don't remember, or i'm afraid to remember. because often times the bad memories hide the good ones like the sweetest secret you don't want anyone to find so you tuck it away in a corner and end up hiding it from yourself, too.

there he sits right in front of me. a stranger with a familiar face.

the one who taught me how to never grow old, the same one who forced me to grow up too fast. now i'm a teenager with a grown-up job.

i watched him walk my sister down the aisle last saturday. he had me comb his hair in the dressing room, checking his tie and coat to make sure they were just so. i used to watch mom do that for him.

i remember she'd make a three-layer blackberry jam cake for his birthday. it was his favorite. he actually remembered my birthday this year. 3 weeks early at that. he brought me tea. it's the herbal kind that helped my sinus infection go away more quickly a few months back.

he has another son now, almost 30 years my younger. i still don't know what to do with that. i feel more comfortable being an aunt than a half-sister. i hate half anything.

i hope he's a good dad, this time. not that he was a complete bad dad to me. i think we both made mistakes and would love "do-overs" if they really existed in real life instead of fiction and imagination.

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God, please continue to show me what YOU look like as a Father. Show me what it means for a Dad to perfectly love his daughter. Help me know what it feels like to call you Daddy, and what that entitles me to. Help me really, really know that you loved me even in the times I still sink my head in shame to remember. You love me for me, then, just as I was, and You love me now, just as I am. Help me really grasp that You will continue to love me, just as I was, just as I am, until it all melts into who I will be.

"I am a promise. I am a possibility. I am a promise, with a capital 'P.' I am a great big bundle of potentiality. And I am learning, to hear God's voice. And I am trying, to make the right choices. I've a promise to be, anything God wants me to be."