This will by far be the hardest post I will have ever
written, and I hope to be as transparent as possible. I don’t even know where
to start, but the fact that I am actually writing this when it has taken me 10
weeks to organize a coherent thought concerning this post, is progress. These
past 10 weeks have been the most draining, physically, mentally, emotionally
and spiritually. On August 22, at the age of 48, my dad died. I still can’t say
those last three words out loud, and I still cannot wrap my head around the
fact that he is gone. I feel like I’ve
had the wind knocked out of me and I’m struggling to regain a rhythmic
breathing pattern. I forget that he’s gone during the day when I’m busy, and
then my heart drops to my stomach when I remember, and there goes my breath. A
family member at the funeral, who lost her dad, warned me of the difficult
times to come when there are big moments in my life. Everyday I think of
something new that he will miss in my life, like, giving his approval to my
future husband when he asks for my hand, or walking me down the aisle, giving
me away, getting to dance with my dad at my wedding, seeing the look on his
face when I tell him I’m pregnant, meeting his grand kids and so on. And it
kills me. Who am I going to call when I have a question while cooking? Google
can’t take his place. I’m sorry that this is becoming more and more like a
diary entry but I believe there is a degree of therapy in writing this out. Let
me tell you a little about my dad. My dad was a fisherman. He spent most of his life fishing, playing
soccer, cooking and experimenting with food, surfing and playing the guitar.
These last few years were hard on him due to some bad choices, but he instilled
all of his passions onto me and inspired me to be good at everything I did,
like he was. Just recently he helped me
move into my new place. He reconstructed my closet and hung my drapes. I will
cherish these memories and all other memories I have of him. But the fact that
there will be no new memories breaks my heart. I hadn’t talked to him in two
weeks prior to getting the news that he had passed, and so it has been 12 weeks
since I last heard his voice. The longest I’ve ever gone without talking to him
and that number will just continue to increase. I’ll never again answer the
phone, “Hey dad what’s up?" Who knew that our last phone call, which was
meaningless, would be our last. And that five weeks later I’d be picking up a
cardboard box with my fathers ashes in them. I had to see them, I had to feel
them through the bag, searching for anything of him. I heard a voice, not sure
if it was my inner thoughts or if I said them out loud, or if it was God trying
to calm me down, but it said, “What are you searching for? He’s not here.”
Everything you are and were and will be, all your memories, your talent, your
everything can be reduced to a bag in a box. Nothing in life can prepare you
for this. We grow up learning how to take care of ourselves, and make smart
decisions so that we can one day be on our own, but no one ever teaches us the
inevitable: how to live in this world without your parents. Especially at a young
age.
God sends storms. That is a given. He also has the power to
stop them, but He is not after your circumstances. He is not there to make our
life easy and comfortable, He is after us. If anything will happen to us that
will help build our character to the likeness of Christ, then He will allow it.
This past year I have struggled in my relationship with God and getting back to
where I used to be before I came home from Uganda in 2012. It’s been a
difficult road, but I can honestly say that through this trial, instead of
being angry at God and getting further from Him, I am running to Him and my
relationship is beginning to restore. These past few weeks at church, we went
through a series titled, “From Tragedy to Triumph” and it couldn’t have been at
a more perfect time. This I know for
certain: God will never waste a hurt or a scar. There is a story being written behind
the one that you see and it is bigger than you can ever imagine. Here are a few
things that Pastor Willy Rice said today: “My circumstances do not determine
the character of God. The presence of difficulty does not prove the absence of
God.” We are being trialed because we have to identify with Christ in His
suffering in order to be like Him. I always thought that the suffering of Christ
was so horrific because it was so brutal and gory and painful. But that wasn’t His
suffering. It was painful but probably more uncomfortable than anything when
compared to being forsaken by the Father. Losing His Father was the suffering
of Christ. God turned His back on Christ, so that He would NEVER have to turn
His back on us. Though I don’t know that type of pain, to be without God,
because I never have to be thanks to Jesus, I do understand the suffering involved
with losing an earthly father and so I
can to a degree, identify with Christ in His suffering. The same goes for
parents who lose children. A lady my mom knew lost her 4 month old baby a few
weeks ago and she can identify with the Father because He also lost a child.
Don’t you see? Everything we go through, Jesus understands, because He has gone
through it. The comfort that comes with that statement is profound. And though my heart is broken, and shattered,
it is slowly being restored by the Redeemer, and it is bringing us closer than
we ever have been before. Some lessons cannot be learned without a broken
heart.
I used to always compare my life to Job’s. I used to sulk
and complain that God has taken everything away from me, but I never realized
that there’s another half to that. Though He takes away, He also gives. It may
not be material things but He gives what we need when we need it and it is
ALWAYS enough.
“The Lord gave and has taken away; may the name of the Lord
be praised.” –Job 1:21
“Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him.” –Job 13:15
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are
wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and
momentary troubles are achieving in us an eternal glory that far outweighs them
all. So we fix our eyes not one what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is
seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal.” – 2 Corinthians 4:16-17
“Praise be to the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our
troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we
ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow
over in our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.” -2
Corinthians 1:3-5
