11 years

Today marks eleven years since my dad passed away.  I remember parts of those last few days so vividly.  I stayed the night with him in the nursing home and helped him before he passed the next morning.  It was so terrible to see and experience, but I wouldn't change it for anything.  I love my dad so much!  I used to have terrible dreams of carrying around his skeleton.  I suppose it was a haunting part of my grieving process.  I haven't had those terrible dreams or felt that deep void in a long time.  I still miss him so much, but I don't feel that overwhelming emptiness anymore.  I almost feel guilty for not having those feelings.  Then I remembered that when Lisa, Rachael, and Judy prayed over me for complete healing shortly after my cancer diagnosis, they also prayed for my deep, dark grieving to cease.  It's not that I don't miss my dad anymore, it's that the void has been filled with Jesus.  I turned on my phone this morning while still laying in bed and my bible app's verse for the day was this:

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." James 5:16

I truly believe that righteous people prayed for me in the name of Jesus and it was powerful and effective.  We can't deny God's power and might.  Trials in this life will come, but we can not lose heart! This affliction is momentary compared to eternity.  Every millisecond of our pain from the fallen nature of man is totally meaningful.  In the path of obedience, it is producing a glory we will get in heaven.  Whether it is my cancer or my dad's death, it wasn't meaningless.  I choose to look at what is unseen and eternal.  I choose to take these truths and day by day focus on them. I am grateful for the twenty-two years that I got to spend with my dad.

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

This song has helped me so much through my trials.

 Though you Slay Me