“You whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth… even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:3-4
Dear Father, it’s the morning after saying the last goodbye to my dad… and my heart is filled with quiet reflection and profound gratitude. These words and promises you spoke through Isaiah many centuries ago came to life in unexpected and sensate ways. I praise you for being so clearly with us during the funeral and burial. I praise you giving me and my brother words to share. Above all, I praise you the gospel is true and dad is safely home with you. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow… Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”
I also praise you for handpicking the fifty or so people that came to dad’s funeral… each a neon-flashing testimony to your being Immanuel—the God who is with us and for us. From conception to my sprouting grey hairs, you have carried, rescued and sustained me. Being in that little sanctuary and looking into those particular faces, overwhelming confirmed this. Abba, Father, how can I not love, praise and worship you?
O, the memories that flooded my heart yesterday. That’s the sanctuary in which I was baptized 60 years ago… where as a 7 year-old, I was given my first New Testament for memorizing the Children’s Catechism… where as an 11-year old, my heart shut down and detached attending mom’s funeral… where as an 18 year-old, I preached my first (self-righteous) sermon… where as a 22 year-old, I married Darlene… clueless about the riches of the gospel, my heart and what marriage was going to require of my soul. Father, you have carried, rescued and sustained me through it all.
And among those 50 guests yesterday—90 year-old Sunday school teachers… neighbors who kept a chair at their table and a welcoming bed for me after mom died… cousins galore and Aunt Cynthia, who did everything she could to fill the mother-less void in my life… JL and Patt, my first spiritual parents and disciplers… those dear men in dad’s “Brotherhood Sunday School Class,” for whom he picked the hymns and led their singing… Ruth, my stepmom, who loved and served dad so well, even when it got so hard. … Darlene, who for 38 years, has loved me through the sweet seasons, hard providences, and gospel oasis’s of this journey to the new heaven and new earth. Father, you have carried, rescued and sustained me, and us, through it all.
Father, throughout this particular Advent season, give each of us eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to acknowledge what a sovereign, loving, and gracious God you really, really are. May all of our hopes, fears and longings converge in Jesus—your quintessential gift to us. Hallelujah, what a Savior! Hallelujah, what a salvation! So very Amen, we pray, in Jesus’ matchless and grace-filled name.