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Wednesday, November 17, 2004
I was 13.
My dad = best friend.
He died unexpectedly.
It didn't really "hurt" at first. It was more shocking than anything else. There were too many details for my mom to attend to. It was busy. There was a lot of family around for support.
My mom kept me busy, too. My dad died on a Saturday. I was back in school the day after the funeral. Kept me from thinking about it too much.
Funny...but the day after the funeral was the first day of my distancing from God. I don't know what answers I was looking for or that any answer would've been sufficient, but I do know that the presiding clergyman "congratulating" me on my dad's entrance into heaven didn't offer any support.
I didn't want to think about my dad's death, so my middle school years were a blur of friends and activities and sports.
I went to the cemetary to visit his gravesite a few years later and it hit me. For some reason I simply came unglued...and I wept uncontrollably for about an hour right there by his headstone. The footstone reads: "Our loving husband and father." It's still etched in my brain and I haven't been there but once since the day I came unglued.
There were games he never got to see me play. There were sporting events we never got to see together. There were girlfriends (that I really thought I was going to marry...funny how the teenage brain is) he never got to meet. First cars he never got to help me fix. Father/Son events I avoided. Jobs he never got to give me advice on. Colleges he never got to see me try to get into. Fishing trips we never took (even though I hated the fishing, I loved the trips). 20th wedding anniversaries that he never got to celebrate that my friends parents got to see. You get the idea.
It was a time when my soul hurt. It truly was at the depths of despair.
And I had just returned as a prodigal to my Heavenly Father. God provided some great disciplers for me...and they told me to do what the psalmist in Psalm 130 did: Tell God.
Verses 1 & 2: "Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications."
Sometimes that's the most important thing we forget to do: Tell God.
When our soul hurts. When things aren't going our way. When we're desperate. When we're on the run. When we're in trouble. When things look their bleakest. When it looks like there's no hope...
Talk to God. Tell Him what's going on in our brain.
And that gives us hope. If we're talking to God about these things, there's an underlying admission that He is there. He is in heaven. He is actually sovereign. He has a plan. He is more powerful than us. He can help us...
...somehow...
...someway.
And that gives us hope.
And hope gives us the ability to survive even the darkest of days.
Or hours.
Or minutes.
Or seconds.
Hope is a powerful reality. Only as powerful as the Object you're placing the hope in.
And if the Object you're placing the hope in is the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniomni of the universe, then hope is the most powerful reality you can have.
And it will give yout he ability to survive the darkest of days.
Or hours.
Or minutes.
Or seconds.
Trust me on this one. I've been there.
And trust the psalmist on this one. He's been there.
Hope has it's reasons. More on that tomorrow.
Brent 4:45 AM
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