Of Fathers
I tell you, I know it’s been far too long since I’ve written here. Is it partially a fault of mine, not wanting to examine my struggle right now? Yes. Silly me. I know that the writing helps.
Of course, this week, it’s been really tough. Amy lost her dad on Tuesday. One, there’s the grieving you do with a friend who loses a loved one. Had to go through that again this morning a bit with Blake–an uncle of his committed suicide last night. It’s never easy, losing those you love, despite broken relationships and such. There’s never a perfect human-human relationship, but man, when it’s severed …
It’s been really damned hard this morning. I read Amy’s latest entry, which had these words: “I’m a lot of things: a sister, a cousin, an aunt, a friend, a spouse — but right now, more than anything, I’m a grown daughter who misses her father very, very much.” Damn. I read that right after I read this, from my own dad: “I read some of the things in IJSM.org last night. I found it interesting as usual. Some fathers look at their sons when they are your age and say, ‘Where did I go wrong?’ I look at your life and say, ‘How did God do so much when I did so little?’ Oh well, we’ll talk about it sometime.”
Forgive me if I’m bent towards explaining my runny nose and watery eyes to co-workers as allergies [which are, actually, acting up for me today]. It’s just all too much.
I’ve got a lot of thoughts just bouncing around, but none of them make any particular sense or have any great worthiness, but I’ll guess I’ll just stop and say this: what my dad said about me, I’m sure Olen would say about Amy. Of course, I guess I’m biased.
Call it personal sentiment, or perhaps it is something deeper, but I do not think it is anything on the order of coincidence that the last words that the Lord spoke for 400 years were the following:
Malachi 4:1 NASB "For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze," says the LORD of hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch."
2 "But for you who fear My name the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.
3 "And you will tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing," says the LORD of hosts.
4 "Remember the law of Moses My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel.
5 "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD.
6 "And he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse."
And who says that the Bible is not for today?
March 22nd, 2002 at 7:54 pmFools, Carlos. Fools.
March 23rd, 2002 at 3:35 pmi’m on the same page as you are, geoff. i sorrow for amy and her family. she’ll not know how well i understand.
you spend time with your dad as much as you can. use the darned phone if need be. i sure miss mine.
March 24th, 2002 at 8:18 pm