January 2, 2025
It’s been a year since my dad died. If you yourself are acquainted with grief you may understand me a bit in when I say that though it has gotten easier, there are times when I wish I could call him to discuss something and I can’t. There are times when my brain, unbidden, plays out the sudden way he
died-which I try to stop immediately when it happens. I miss his presence on earth.
We were not particularly close and later in life incidents from childhood surfaced that brought with them deep pain and hurt. But these incidents also were clues as to why I made choices that I did that I didn’t understand before. I forgave him but my feelings were another matter. Slowly, slowly Jesus
helped me heal. He unfolded the hurt in me and eventually I saw my dad through His eyes, through the lens of love. Love that goes beyond me. Love that is miraculous. Though I summed that up quickly, arriving there was NOT a quick journey in the least. And I wanted to arrive there and sometimes I preemptively thought I had but there was more to deal with. I learned healing is an ongoing process. One can arrive at a place of total love and forgiveness and pain can still surface. I learned not to stuff that pain that surfaced but to question it and deal with it, with Jesus. Most of my life I practiced the opposite: stuffing pain not realizing that is like getting a deep gash on your body but not dealing with it or pretending like it’s not there. Over time it begins to get infected and maybe even gangrenous or
septic-it has to be dealt with.
A couple of months before he died I felt to invite him to Thanksgiving with my family. This prompting was brought on by Holy Spirit and I know that because it wasn’t a thought I would have and it would involve driving an extra six hours as he didn’t have a car and would need a ride to and from
Thanksgiving. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of that much time in the car with him as conversation with him often involved him talking at me about things that interested him but I had become changed by the lens Jesus gave me for him and I saw him through that lens so this time with him was different. I cared more about what he shared. I tried to connect to it. He was grateful for the time with all of us. He seemed to feel loved by it. I was grateful too. I didn’t feel like “I did him a favor” rather that I got a gift in
that time with him.
January 2nd , 2024 he died. Looking back I’m deeply grateful for the prompting to invite him to Thanksgiving and for everyone else in my family to be on board with his attendance. This was our last time with him on earth. It was a really good day and probably the best it could’ve been. This invitation was the work of the Lord and He knew the urgency of it that not one of us could have. So why am I writing this? I felt to write this a few days ago to urge you, dear reader to search your heart and ask if there is anyone you feel led to spend some time with that maybe you rather wouldn’t. If you know Jesus, ask Him to show you. If there is healing that needs to happen or forgiveness for one that has hurt you, He can help with that. Is there someone in your life that could use your encouragement? Or your words of love? When someone close to you passes it becomes so evident how short our time on earth is and letting people know how you feel about them and the gift of their life in your life is HUGE! And maybe that is a hard step for you to take as you feel someone should do that for you instead but let me leave off with this and it’s sort of a riff of a well known quote: when you bring forward light you unlock others to bring it forward as well. When you let people know what they mean to you, really, you help them see the value in doing the same. And maybe they will or maybe they won’t tell you how they feel about you, you don’t own that part. But I can’t tell you the peace I have now from taking that step to follow the prompting to invite my dad to Thanksgiving and the goodness of the time we got together
that ensued. I did get to tell my dad what he meant to me before he died.