Life is full of ironies. And I believe I may have just experienced the greatest one of my life so far. Yesterday was Father's Day, a time to celebrate the years, the life of my dad being just that, a dad. And it was good, it was a very special, encouraging time and it was a reminder to value him for everything he is, to love him dearly and honor him.
Then today, not 24 hours later, I received a phone call from my sister...telling me that Mom was taking Dad to the ER with the chance that he'd just had a mini-stroke. The irony of celebrating my dad's life and then turning around immediately to face the harsh truth of his mortality. It was strange, to get that jolt, that shock of real life as I face the truth that my father is growing older. My parents both turn 54 this year, but let me tell you that they are not anywhere close to old. They don't look it, act it or in any way resemble being old, elderly, decrepit or any other such thing reaching senior years. In fact the older I get the younger the ages they are become. Yet all of a sudden there was the frailty of life before my eyes in my daddy. My daddy, who'd maybe had a stroke...
The lyrics of a Casting Crowns song echoed through my mind, "a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow. A wave tossed in the ocean. A vapor in the wind." And in a new way like never before I felt the truth of those words. This life is so short, so fast and fading and the knowledge that before long I could lose the daddy who had always been there for my entire life was a cold wind that swept through me. Maybe not today, because this wasn't that serious, but sometime in the future, and those distant problems you hear about other people dealing with can happen to him too. Yesterday we spoke of his purpose, adventures, strengths, character and influence. Today we watched as the weaknesses of his broken, human body were prevailing, and he was not in control of his situation, powerless to change the struggles inside him.
Even when Mom took Dad to the hospital he wasn't in a critical condition, it was more to determine what had actually happened and to try to prevent it from happening again. I can't even grasp it quite, put the words into the thought that it needs to make it a filled out, understandable idea, but I felt in a close, personal sense the reality of the truth that one day my daddy would die, and that probably sooner than later in the number of years that I have lived so far and may yet live. That was hard. I don't want to lose my daddy, I want to hang on, to grab hold of him and never let go for all my life so that he stays right here with me. But standing in that moment, listening to the message from my sister, right here, right now, I knew, knew in a real, factual, this is going to happen way I'd never known before that it's truth. He will die and I will lose him. My daddy is still alive and well right now, but in that moment I felt his loss and it hurt...
As I drove home to wait for news from the hospital another song played on the radio. How do we doubt God? Really and truly, I don't understand, even when I do it. Everything He does is orchestrated to perfection when He plans it. "God is greater than the fear you're facing, greater than the storm that's raging, God is, God is, with you when you cry, so cry out His name, 'cause God is greater than the pain..." Timing couldn't be better? God is the creator of time, indeed how could He be anything but the master of it. And I just had to smile, and I felt His presence as He looked at me and reminded me that He is in control, and nothing on this planet happens without His permission. In the middle of that pain and concern, closeness to mortality, there was a peace and joy in the Lord's infinity. And I let it go. It's in His hands anyway so why try to take it from Him when I can't even carry it. My daddy is in His hands, and when it's time that he leaves this world then his life will truly be complete in his Maker. And you know what, driving down the road it was beautiful thought. The irony...
And yet a moment like that brings the depth, the clock, the purpose and path of your life into a clarity of focus that we often gloss over and at times entirely miss. We live a life of grace, so revel in every moment the Lord sees fit to give us. Love your family, love your friends, love your enemies. We have the here and now, it's ours, and it's really all we do have because the past is gone already and the future has yet to be manifest. I have the time that the Lord granted for me to be with Dad, no more, but no less! Don't be ungrateful, make use of every bit handed to you. Any moment our "perfectly normal, happy, safe lives" can be turned upside down, because really our lives hang in the balance. Accept the gift of the Creator and then dwell in the present even as you step back to see the timeline stretching on either side. God for a moment let me feel the finite and boundless at once. My dad is okay, and as best the doctors understand tonight's concerns were actually caused by positional vertigo and possibly connected with the coincidental diagnosis of mitral prolapse (heart valve problem). Some more testing will need to be done with that but an MRI confirmed no involvement of stroke. We are ever so thankful that it wasn't a stroke and a good deal less serious than it might have been. God was good to us all and we acknowledge His grace. And in the middle of those problems, more concerning than many we run into on a daily basis, in fact because of them, we saw the goodness of the Lord and His protection of us, and it was indeed His perfect irony.
