When All is Said and Done…

“Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and spend a year there and carry on our business and make money.
Yet you do not know [the least thing] about what may happen tomorrow. What is the nature of your life? You are [really] but a wisp of vapor (a puff of smoke, a mist) that is visible for a little while and then disappears [into thin air].
You ought instead to say, If the Lord is willing, we shall live and we shall do this or that [thing].” James 4: 13-15 (AMP)

My heart is heavy today because my Father’s health is failing. He is ninety years old and by many standards has lived a good life – the American dream! He has been able to get jobs when many Black men could not; he has lived in houses never intended for him; he has traveled as much as he desired – he has received a pension from retirement for nearly twenty-five years! Each day as he arose, he determined a plan – he did it his way. Now as he struggles in the great abyss between life and death – he has no control over his life, he’s being stuck with IV needles because he is badly dehydrated – he has monitors and blood pressure cuffs on him – his personhood is being invaded and he is not happy about it!

How do you pray for someone who is ninety years old, suffering from a stroke that has left him somewhat unaware of his surroundings – yet still filled with all the strength of his will that has kept him strong all these years? What I remember was one day asking God who in my family (who seemed to all be pagans) was it that prayed for me to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. It was a discovery that came through consistent prayer. God showed me that when I was a baby, the woman who cared for me, an aunt of my mother’s, prayed for me and I believe prayed that I would live my life for the Lord. But God was not finished there, for through a set of circumstances, I found out that my grandmother’s father (my father’s mother) was a Methodist preacher around the turn of the twentieth century. God reminded me of John Wesley and the revival that took place in the nineteenth century and the hearts that burned with the fire of the Holy Ghost! Surely it was those prayers that kept my grandmother alive for nearly 100 years – and now my Father.

It made sense – I didn’t come from a vacuum – I came from a lineage of faith on both sides – those prayers had reached down generations and brought me out of darkness into His marvelous light! What I also knew was that God didn’t skip generations – the same God who reached His hand of love toward me and beckoned me to come – would not forget my own mother and father. Toward the end of her life, after years of questioning and resisting Him, my mother made peace with God. I believe at this very moment in the midst of his failing health, the Holy Spirit is preparing my father for the eternity that he is soon to face. Won’t you join with me that even now, his heart will surrender – and he will give God that most important final yes…

May God Bless You,
Maria