He would have been 93.
It is hard to imagine what my father would have been like today if he had not died fourteen years ago. It is hard for me to imagine him playing with my grandson or perching his great-granddaughter on his knee.
As I write this, I can feel the hot tears begin to well and I know that they could easily flow down my face onto my keyboard. Not a good idea. Not just because salt water is bad for computer keyboards, but because I know that my father is now and has been since the moment his heart ceased to beat, in the very presence of the Lord Jesus.
He is experiencing joy unspeakable and full of grace. He knows peace which passes understanding. He is in the very presence of Eternal Love. The very best day I could imagine for him on earth would be a dreadful day in Heaven. Not for a moment would he wish to be back here and not for a second would I want to bring him back.
My granddaughter Emma has been trying to understand why I "don't have parents anymore". At each visit she asks me about my parents, about how they died, and then she follows those questions with this inevitable one,"Do you miss them?"
Yes, Emma, I miss both of them very much. But the same joy that my Dad knows today, I know inside of me. The same peace he knows, I have living in me. The same love has come to dwell in my spirit.
I may have lost my father in this world, but I have grown in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus unlike anything I could have imagined. This is because those sad days, those mournful moments turned me to the only One who can truly comfort in this world, the "Man of Sorrows".
"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not." Isaiah 53:3
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