The Open Door

My sister and I were in a local shopping mall when we got the message:   "Please come home quickly.    Dad has had another epileptic fit and I can't get him awake."

We ran to the parking lot where we had parked the car and took the journey home, not knowing what was waiting for us, t Our discussion centered around the past months and the tests that were done and how we need to check more diligently if dad was taking his medication as prescribed.

When we got home, we found the garage door already open.   My sister was the first one to open the side door leading to dad's garden flat.    I was close behind her.     I saw her take my dad's pulse and I stared at his pale face   I was.expecting to find dad slumped in his chair and breathing heavily like usual during one of the attacks that had plagued him a lot since January 2011.

I put my hand on his head and felt the coldness there of, and for  that moment a coldness lodged itself in my very soul.    She sat next to him and felt for a pulse on the other wrist.   "Here is no pulse!"  she said calmly.   I reached for his heart inside his warm jacket and imagined I heard a small breath and argued with Linda.    She put her hand in front of his nose, but the verdict remained the same.    There was no pulse!

In that moment the world froze for ever.   Nothing would ever be the same.    That which was precious, a constant in my life, would never be again.    The foundation I had been building on, counted on and shared so much with, had been ripped from me.    A  door had closed forever shutting my life shared with my beloved dad.    A new door was facing me and it was very scary.    For so many years he was my sounding board, my councelor and my comforter.    Now in that I was alone.   The door to me being the next generation, the next runner passing on the baton, was overwhelming.

One door had closed, leaving the steps that I followed in behind me.    In front of me a new door challenged me.  In that one moment of death I had to breathe life into the footprints and legacy I wanted to carve out for my children.

Although the thought terrified me, it also comforted me.   I had been given the blue print for my footsteps which I needed to design the road of my own legacy.

Jesus said:  "I am the door."   As long as I am walking through His door and following His footsteps that leads through that door, I would be OK.    I would not be alone.   I will be like the traveler on the road to Emmaus.    Marveling at the things dad had shared with me and waiting for Jesus to explain it to me.

I am praying that when Jesus comes to close the door on my life, that the footsteps I have left, would be the legacy for my own generation. 

TRUSTING GOD

TRUSTING  GOD.

What does it mean to trust God?   Is it a knowledge that God is able to do more than you can ever imagine?   Is it a feeling that brings comfort, understanding that the God you believe in, loves you and takes care of you?    Does trusting God mean I must do nothing, or is it me doing my part and God doing His?   Can it be that trusting my Saviour is saying one thing, believing something else and finding the middle way that harmonized the sense I can make between my own capabilities and God's abilities.? 

In the darkest time of my life God has taught me that trusting my Saviour is so much than a knowledge, a scripture verse, a prayer, an understanding, a wish, a faith, and whatever else I can think of to describe it.   God has taught me through his divine revelation that trusting him means not understanding or being able to make any sense of the future, my own failures, my own dashed dreams and human failure and fears.   Trusting in God is understanding that in the midst of trouble , in the midst of the valley experience, in the middle of the battle , during the darkest night, in the whirlpool of absolute and devastating despair, God picks me up, puts me into  his very presence, shrouds me with his peace and tells me:  "My child, come into my rest....give over completely....resign to the knowledge that you can do nothing to change anything...your only solace, weapon, comfort, is prayer and trust. 

Trusting Jesus has made me realize that when there is nothing that I can do, I should completely give over to him.  I can safely put my future,  my shortcomings and  my incapability in changing anything, over to him.   It means having peace midst the storm.   Sleeping soundly when everything around me has crushed me.  It is having a hope beyond human understanding.   It is having a song in my heart and joy in my soul of knowing the One who knows and holds tomorrow, the Only One who has planned for tomorrow, has put things in place.    When I accept that  only the one who holds the future and my very sanity, is in control of my life.   It is understanding that because He is my Father and I am his child, he wishes only the best for me and that during troubled times, I am never separated from his love.   I can merely  watch as a spectator how wonderfully

God unfolds His love and plans. 

Trusting God means that some time, I don't know when, God will make all my dreams, hopes and aspirations come true.    It is waiting expectantly and with anticipation for the day when I can dance in His presence, praise his Holy Name and fall down at his feet, worship him and shout:
"Praise to the One and Only God of my heart".