Not long ago, we were cleaning out Mom’s little house after her death. And my father died nine years ago.
I thought I’d really processed all about who he was, a man of very deep faith. His graces at dinnertime were something that filled my lives. ‘Let us pray.’ And then he’d just pray about everything that came up while he was driving home. You know, what he heard on the news, he’d pray about us. We heard him pray about us. What a gift to hear your father pray about what you’re going through. That exam, the try-out for drill team my sister was doing.
But then I discovered on Mom’s shelf, this Bible, and in it a prayer that he had made to God and written down. Gosh, he was in his seventies when he wrote this.
“Father God, as you know I rejoice in wife, children, grandchildren, close friends, colleagues, companions and the warm love of Jesus. So why do I suffer from self-confidence? Why do I see the negatives and shortcomings in my everyday life? Why call up shortcomings when I have so much confidence in those I love and rejoice about?”
His prayer of suffering. I could put that into the father I remembered and the father I knew, and I could remember how he had struggled. We’d seen it. But to think that he asked God for that. And there was this witness here in this Bible.
Now I’m not a big one for saving every letter and everything because there’s so much stuff, but this is something I’ll always save. “Yes”, he says to God, “get rid of the baggage. Things that bother me, clean them out and up. Do it now.” And then he signs, “love ya.”
Now that’s Dad. That is also who God was. He always said, “Love ya,” at the end of any phone conversation, “Love ya.” But he loved God and struggled. I pray that prayer was answered and I pray I can understand him better. Even long after his death, a little prayer I found in the Bible. God bless you.
