His Long Journey Home: the greatest blessing of my race

My mom grew up in a Hindu family but became a Christian in college and has been praying since that day for her family to do the same. Growing up in a Christian home, my siblings and I wanted this for them as well and have had many conversations with our grandparents about faith. When you have something you value so much, you want the people you love to have it too. They would listen, but it always seemed like they just sought to understand rather than believe… that they had their beliefs and we had ours. It never seemed to really impact their hearts. 

When I signed up for the World Race, Papa was one of my biggest supporters– not just financially but through emotional support as well. He has always had a big heart for helping the less fortunate, so the nature of this trip spoke right to him. While it is a Christian mission trip, we do so much to also meet the physical needs of people around the world. It was the humanitarian aspect rather than the faith that drew him in… but God had so much more planned for him. 

Back in November, Papa had a famous Indian poet come to his home. He has always been the kind of grandfather who swells with pride for his grandkids, and he began telling him about the journey I was on. He showed my blog to the poet who was so inspired that he asked Papa to translate them all into his local Indian language. It's cool how God works, isn't it? Now this journey isn't only a story for my family but for thousands of people in India as well, most of whom don't know The Lord. In trying to understand what I meant in one of my blogs, he asked me a question that opened the door to conversations we had never before had about faith. We both sought to understand what the other person believed, and I saw that he was being open and receptive in a totally new way. Eventually, he mentioned his greatest hang-up on Christianity: If God is good and nothing happens without His will, why is there so much suffering? He was certainly not alone in seeing the problems of this world and doubting that a good and loving God could exist. The challenge was that I didn't know how to respond because that's a question I've battled before too. Over the next five months, I spent countless hours thinking about it, praying about it, and looking for answers in the Bible, online, from the people around me, and through the experiences I was having on the Race. God poured out answer after answer and example after example of His love, and I wrote a twenty-page response to Papa's question. I really felt that it was God's message to him and not my own, God's answer and not mine. I sent it and prayed that God would use it in his life. (If you're interested in this question of suffering and God's goodness, please email me and I'll be happy to share the full response with you.)

Right around the time I sent Papa the message, he got sick. I still don't know all the details, but he was hospitalized because of something with his heart and it took a lot out of him. God's timing is incredible… maybe this made it all so much more real because now he wasn't just reading about suffering but experiencing it as well. Over the next month or so, he had to come to grips with the reality of feeling mortal for the first time and began thinking about what all of this meant in the grand scheme of his life. Near the end of our tenth month on the Race, he was diagnosed with a heart disease and given months to live. Months changed to weeks, which quickly became days.

Meanwhile, people started praying like crazy– my family, my entire squad, people back home– not even for his physical healing but for him to come to faith before he died, because the important thing isn't this life but what comes after. He knew the basic idea of what the Bible says… that every person deserves to be separated from God because of sin, but out of love, God sent His Son Jesus to save us. He lived the perfect life we couldn't live, died the death we deserved to die, and rose again so neither death nor sin have any power over us. He desires to be with us that much! If we simply believe that what Jesus did was for us and that He's the Savior of the world, then we will live with Him in heaven when we die. It's that simple. Papa knew this message, and we prayed that He would fully accept it and give his life to The Lord before he died. Prayers are so powerful, and God is faithful to answer them. 

Being in Africa, I had to watch this from afar and trust that God was working in his life when I couldn't be physically there to see it. My family would tell me that they could see his heart changing and that whether or not he said the words with his mouth, that they had a reason to believe he had faith. His body continued to fail, we continued to pray, and God continued to fill his life. And then I got the message that I had been dreaming to get for so long: Papa got baptized! Papa… got… baptized. My mom said that whether or not he made it long enough for me to get home, she was confident he'd be waiting for us all in heaven. Even five days before, we didn't know we'd be able to say that. This seemed like the greatest victory, like my biggest and longest prayer had been answered, and all I could say when I prayed was, "Thank you" over and over again. Two days later, in God's perfect timing, Papa passed away. Would I have loved if God waited two weeks so I could make it home in time? Absolutely. But God brought him to faith and then called him home, and I couldn't have asked for a greater miracle. So many friends, family members, and strangers are watching and being impacted through what happened, and I really believe that his will be only the first of many hearts changed because of it. 

So much of this story was connected to the idea of suffering and God's goodness. It's no coincidence that God used Papa's story to reveal this goodness to so many people and to teach us all so much… 

It's never too late for a person to come to faith. God's love is for every single person in this world, and His will is for each of us to be with Him in heaven. God pursued Papa every day for eighty years; He never gave up on him. It wasn't until his final few days that Papa came to faith, but it doesn't matter if it's the first second or the last second of a person's life. Some people walk in faith their whole life, others walk in faith for only a few days or even hours. God loves them and rewards them all the same. Watching Papa's body fail and his days become numbered, it would have been easy to lose hope… but God can encounter anyone at any moment as He did for Papa. He works miracles, and we must never lose hope. 

God can use anybody. All we need to do is be obedient to Him and say, "Yes." To a lot of people looking from the outside in, it seems like I played a big role in Papa coming to faith. Honestly though, the only thing I did in this entire story is say yes to God when He wanted to use me; He did all the rest. I was simply obedient and faithful to what He asked me to do, and He chose to work through me. It's God, not us, who brings people to faith. It isn't about what we have to offer but rather what He puts inside of us to give away. He wants to work through all of us… will you let Him?

Prayer is so powerful. So far away from home, there came a point where I couldn't do anything about Papa's faith but pray. I couldn't be there to talk to him or encourage him to see the truth. But I could pray… I could pray a lot as a full choir of people were praying too. God has given this to us as a gift, as a way to talk directly to Him. He hears every prayer we pray, and each one reaches His heart. He loves to give His children what we ask for when we ask for the right reasons and in full faith that we'll receive. Sometimes, praying is all we can do… and sometimes that's all we need. We need to fall at the feet of The Father and talk to Him.

Faith will carry us. In the last few months of his life, I had a very real feeling that Papa would come to faith before he died. I didn't just hope it would happen; I believed in the deepest part of my heart that it actually would. And I held on to this faith even when his time drew shorter. We had a hundred reasons to think he would not come to faith and one reason to believe he would: God is the one who works faith in our hearts, and He can do anything. This was the realest faith I've ever had and the time I needed it the most. I dare you to have this kind of faith… Trust God when it's really hard to trust Him, and don't give up hope. Because what good is faith if you only have it when it's easy?

God is our comforter. Not being with my family while all of this was going on was the most difficult it has been all year to be away from home. I wanted so badly to be there for them… to help them see the light in all this darkness and to comfort them because this is a role I've filled my whole life. But from all the way over here, I just couldn't do that the same way and I felt like I was leaving a big gap unfilled. The Bible refers to Jesus as many things. One is the author of our faith, and I watched Him write a beautiful story for Papa. Another is Prince of Peace. I had to trust that God would comfort them and bring them the peace I couldn't bring myself, and He did. He filled the space I left so much better than I could fill it and brought more peace than I could have given. At a time when people normally see a loss, my mom could confidently say, "I feel like I just gained my dad." That's all God. And He gave me peace too because thousands of miles from home, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. He is faithful.

Only God knows what was in Papa's heart before he died and the words he wasn't able to say. But I know that he received God's Word and heard the message, so now I'm praying that he fully accepted Jesus and trusting that he is in heaven with Him right now. To some people, Papa's death seems like the end, and that would be a sad reality if this were true. But to me, this is something to celebrate because I believe he's home in heaven. His whole life was just a long journey home, and now he's where he belongs. 

If Papa's salvation was the only blessing to come of this whole Race, I'd say every second was worth it… But God has poured out blessing after blessing after blessing, and I'm so grateful that this was one of them. God is so good!