So I lost my dad…

Well I haven’t returned to this blog in a LONG time. So much has changed for me in the past few years, especially in 2022. And believe it or not, I’ve been drafting this post for about a year now trying to process things. I don’t even know if any of my old subscribers will read this update but seeing there are still active readers hanging around, I figured I’d resurrect this blog with an update post!

I lost my father in 2022. He passed away literally a week after he turned 80 years old. This timing reminded me of the verse:

“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”

Psalms 90:10

Losing him so unexpectedly truly affected me, to be honest. He was my spiritual guidance throughout my life. I grew up knowing God because of him, and followed his advice in all matters. He sparked in me a love for Jesus Christ early on, inspired me with his faith and steadfast pursuit of Christ, and showed me an incredible example of how to live for Him. I was able to grow up being part of his ministry, hearing him preach, learning from him daily, watching him pray for the healing of sick people and casting out demons in the name of Jesus Christ, and most of all, loving and forgiving others the way Christ taught. His life was an amazing example for me to grow up learning from, and for this I am so incredibly grateful.

But losing him caused me immense sorrow. I had my questions to ask God. My faith took a toll. Given how healthy and active my father was up until that point compared to his peers of the same age, it truly blindsided us when he was suddenly on the doorstep of death.

As a child, I had learned about Job and his steadfast faith, how even in the worst of sufferings, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, he never once turned against God. Having learned of him, I had always wondered if I would receive an opportunity to show myself faithful to God no matter the circumstance. I had wondered if the faith I thought I had was truly unbreakable in the face of immense sorrows and trials. Well, boy did life (God, really) give me more opportunities for this than I could ask for! And my dad’s passing was the biggest yet. As I watched my dad slip away to eternity with a smile on his face, I felt the mockery of voices telling me “there goes your faith” but louder I said within my heart, “no, I am clinging onto Jesus Christ no matter what happens”. All this while grieving with a broken heart. All this while remembering the countless ways in which Christ had showed up and saved us in the past. All the while my sweet mother told me words that gave me a new hope: She said, “let your dad go rest with the Lord honey, he has endured through so much in life”….

That was when I remembered that mortality was real and inevitable, and that there lied a greater hope on the other side of it. After all father had spent every moment of his life talking about Christ and of his earnest desire to go be with Him. Just as Paul said,

“For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven”…..

“We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”

2 Corinthians 5:2,8

And so through the immense grief, through the sorrow of losing my rock, through the regrets of not having more time together because of us being far apart while he was alive – through all that, my mother and I trusted God to guide us through. We felt like God was asking us to rely on Him completely. God was reminding us that He had never forsaken us in the past, and He never would.

The fact is that we must all die; it is one of the only certainties granted to mankind. After all, the events in the garden of Eden guaranteed this curse into our lives. However, we know that there is soon coming a glorious day when Jesus Christ returns and we reunite with our loved ones that day! If Christ’s return happens to delay (which, given the state of the world right now, I highly doubt), then we will reunite at death! After all, life on earth is but a fleeting moment compared to the rest of unending eternity that we get to spend with Christ and our loved ones in heaven and on the new earth! (Read the last couple of chapters of Revelation)

I say, those who have died in Christ are so lucky. How lucky they are to be able to witness the face of Jesus Christ, to dwell with Him, to have fellowship with Him and all past believers, to be at peace and separated from all physical and emotional ailments that come with life on earth. To be free from all burdens must be such a blessing, and a blessing I hope to attain someday when my race is over!

So whether by death or by rapture, my mom and I press forward in excitement for the very day that we, too, will get to witness our beloved Christ in all His glory, and stand by my father’s side while doing so!