Significance

For the rest of my life, today will be a very significant day. My dad died 2 years ago today. At this very moment, 2 years ago, I was sitting on my front porch making phone calls to many loved ones and giving them the news. As I listened to the person on the other side of the phone choke tears, I said the same thing over and over again: "I know, it's ok, I understand, thank you." Afterwards, I sat in the dining room with my family, all of us with glazed looks in our eyes from no sleep for more than 24 hours.

**Now, here's a warning: I need to write this for myself, in fact, I'm finishing it 2 days late because I debated whether this is a good idea to write-some of you might find my thoughts upsetting. For that, I apologize.

If you've read my blog, you'll know the significance of my dad's passing and how the effect the last 2 years have had. As I reflect, the first year seemed easier. That could be due to being in school and well, whatever the steps of grief are. This year was much more difficult. I've spent more time thinking about specific events leading up to the day my dad went home.

One of those significant events is how he took the miraculous healing of a very dear friend of ours from church. She was deathly ill and dad believed that her friends and family (all of us) prayed her back here. We "changed" God's mind in taking her home and we kept her here. I remember debating with dad on how God answers prayer.

It's been preached before: Even if we don't "feel" it, or think He does, God always answers prayers with 1 of 3 answers: 1) Yes 2) No or 3) Wait. Obviously, with our dear friend, when everyone prayed for her while she was forced to allow a respirator breath for her, Dad believed that God answered with "Yes, she can stay here." Or it just wasn't her time. Although Dad saw the blessing in Barb's miraculous healing, he also understood what Barb was missing: the Glory of going home.

The significance is that dad understood what it meant to die. He understood what awaited him, and although he agonized what he would leave behind, he couldn't wait to go home. I saw this agony as he lay in the hospital bed while I told him my graduation plan and he had tears in his eyes when he said, "not until next year?" When he suddenly took a deathly turn, we prayed to God to heal him and let him stay. God answered our prayer with "No, it's time for him to go home." We've battled with why dad was taken so soon, so suddenly and the answer is so simple: because it was time.

This significance hit me even harder when I came across the last Mother's day card he gave me, just a few weeks before his death. This is what he wrote in the card:

One thing about my relationship with my dad: we butt heads. A lot. And he wasn't that great in the praising category. But in the past few years, his heart softened and although I was used to Mr. Critical, for him to write something like this, something that would have been very difficult for him to verbalize is extremely significant. There is so much love in this card. And so much finality. Dad also couldn't spell to save his life. This card is perfect. Perfect in every aspect. The writing, the grammar. The poetic thought. He put so much thought and love and, well, significance into this card that no matter how disappointed I am in myself, I can look at this and know what dad truly thought of me.

And I think Dad did that on purpose. Well, I like to think that. At least I hope so.

Either way, always look for the significance in the events in your life, and what God does in your life, and how God answers prayers.