I’m home and it’s surreal. Sometimes it feels as if the last year was just a dream. Or that I am playing with time and I pressed pause on life here until now. Tonight only increased those feelings. Tonight
I opened a wrapped gift from my Mom and discovered two envelopes inside. One
was addressed to me in her handwriting. The other in what looked to be my
father’s.
I know my father’s handwriting.
But getting a letter from one’s father 3 plus years after he’s
died is something that happens in movies. It’s not something that happens to
me, right now, in this huge transition, in this time of unknowing in my life.
Yes, it is.
I even talked myself out of it while opening it. It can’t
be. It’s too good to possibly be true. But I unfold the letter and scan to the bottom. ‘Love,
Dad’ in that beautiful, confident, scrolly handwriting that I always tried to
mimic as a teen, and sometimes still do.
Once we’d had a disagreement because I’d been writing him
letters from college. I was asking him to write me back and he stubbornly said
he wouldn’t. He kept saying ‘I’m not a writer, Hon.’ I reconciled myself that
writing was an area of insecurity for him.
Anyhow, this was a letter from him. And, he was right. He
wasn’t a writer.
But it was full of love. It was full of blessing. And I knew
then, as I know now, that he was proud. I can picture him in Heaven with open arms. I
can picture him right now cheering me on. Anything that held him back here on earth, he
is free from. Sickness, despair, obstacles… he is free. He’d be the first to
tell me to press on. If I could hear him, he’d be saying ‘forget everything
else and just run after Jesus.’ Heck, that’s part of what the letter was
saying.
Re-entry is weird. I feel out of place, without a plan,
still in shock that the last year happened, wondering if I am different or how I
am changed.
It was perfect timing to receive a ‘well done’ from my
earthly father. It felt amazing. I can
only imagine and press on towards the joy of hearing those words from my
Heavenly Father.
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we
shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I
am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is
unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!
You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many
things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ Matthew 25:23
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of
witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing
our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before
him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of
the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1
Run the race, Beloved. Run it to the fullest. Our Lord is
worthy. And His love for us is unfathomable.
