My Dad

It was snowing.  

I woke up to see the big fluffy flakes hitting the basement windows of the guest  bedroom. 

That might not seem so unusual. It was after all only the beginning of March. But this was a freak storm in Maryland, a place that does not really know how to handle the snow.

Me, I love snow.  

It is a connection between God and I. 

And I knew.

I knew, and the tears started welling up.  

My dad was going to die today.

I ran upstairs to talk to my sister and my mother. I had to get to the hospital. We had just been told the day before, the day my dad had awoken from a week long coma, that instead of a few days, now we had months or maybe years that my dad was going to live. My sister, who always has it in her heart to be helpful, who has to be moving, to be doing something, was already organizing a list of places to visit. Places that dad could spend the rest of his days.   

I declared my emphatic plans to head to the hospital - NOW. They looked at me strangely, perhaps they thought I was losing it. Mom chose to come with me, Steph was on the move.

I made it to the hospital. I held my dad’s hand. He was already out of it. His breathing slowed and within the hour, it was over.

On March 9, 1999 in the middle of a very localized snow storm of 8 inches that landed on Southern Maryland, my dad died. The snow fell like a blanket around me. God’s hands in white, holding me, carrying me. He knew how hard this was for me. He knew I did not have all the answers.

He knew.

 God knew that I would rebel, that I would walk away from Him because of this. For a time anyway.

And yet, at that moment He was there. He made it as special and loving for me as possible.

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  My dad was a great man. He had a heart that few understood. He was honest and fully loyal to those that he considered in need. He was brilliant, a physicist, a researcher, a professor. And he had his doubts about God. He vacillated between being an agnostic to being atheist. He saw too much corruption, too much hate, and too little answers from the church. He saw the wars and rumors of wars and their devastating effects on people, on children, on innocence.

  I never got to hear him say, “Jesus is Lord.” So as a conservative Christian, a misfit in the middle of this family, how do I deal with this.  How? Well, despite my anger, frustration, pain and sadness, God had already laid out a way . . .

   A year earlier, God had spoken to my heart and said to me, “You have said enough to your dad, let Me talk to him now.” And I knew what God meant. I saw in the corner of my eye this small blue Gideon Bible that was in the open luggage as I was packing to go on a missionary trip to Russia. I opened it up and read some hymns in the front of this little bible. Hymns that I have heard my dad sing, despite his questioning soul. This bible wasn’t meant for Russia, it was meant for him.

     I gave my dad a challenge that year. I set a gauntlet down before him:

“Dad, you may have fears about what is going to happen. You grew up in Sunday School and you may have questions. Read this Bible. If it is God’s word, you will know it. And you can meet the God who loves you and find peace. If it is not God’s word, you will know that too. Then you can put your mind to ease about whatever “Sunday School fears” you might have. It is a win-win for you.”

My dad agreed. 

And he was faithful to that promise, to that challenge. He took that little Bible with him everywhere. He hated waiting in lines, so when he was in a checkout line, he would pull that bible out and read it. He would read it at odd times during the day and night.

     I saw some changes in him, not exactly what I was hoping for, not the specific words I wanted to hear. But there were changes. 

    He did come to me one day and tell me, “April, there Has to be a God. I just don’t know about a God that is that personally involved in someone’s life. That just seems too far fetched.”

. I cried. He got it. Perhaps better than most Christians, just how amazing this relationship with God really is!

     Then there was the night that I got the call from mom, that dad had been taken to the hospital. I made a mad 8 hour dash through the night to Maryland from my home in upstate NY. All through the night, the words from the book of Ephesians kept coming to my mind. It felt like it was the whole epistle that I “heard” that night. When I got to mom’s house, I went to dad’s bedside and found that little blue Giddeon Bible. 

My heart melted, it was marked in Ephesians. 

I took it to the hospital and for the next several days read that book over and over again to him while he was in a coma. I had a host of churches and Christian friends in prayer for him. I expected miracles, but didn’t see what I had planned. I learned at that moment that I just had to trust that God was working.

   Several months later, when mom and I were going through some of my dad’s stuff, I found something. There in the midst of some old papers from his childhood was a Baptismal Certificate.  This was not just a simple paper that had the date and acknowledgement of this event. No, this was a detailed declaration of my dad’s love and determination to follow after Jesus. His very own child-like signature was at the bottom. It was the most wonderful piece of paper that I have ever seen!

   In the midst of my confusion, in figuring out what salvation means all over again, I had hope. God does things in His time, and in His way. I had to trust. I fought this trust over the next couple of years, but He kept bringing me back to these evidences of His working and timing. God is God. God had a hold of my dad, had been working in him, and it was time I let my dad go to the God who fully keeps His promises, even when we do not see them complete.

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“These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us - so that only together with us would they be made perfect and complete.” Hebrews 11:39-40

“I am confident that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6