but mostly telling me how much
he enjoyed watching me preach. I
remember that day’s conversation
pretty vividly, because it would be
the last coherent conversation I
would ever have with my dad.
That night my mom called me and
said, “He doesn’t have long. Get
over here now.” interpret it.
Literally for years, I prayed for God
to heal my dad’s body. Healing—
that’s the thing I wanted. That’s the
thing I thought we needed. That’s
the thing I couldn’t stop wishing for,
even as I wondered why it wouldn’t
happen. You could say I thirsted for it.
And in an eternal sense, I do believe
He died a few days later with his
family by his side singing his favorite
hymns like “The Old Rugged Cross,”
“Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross,”
and “Bad Moon Rising” by Credence
Clearwater Revival. Hey, it’s kind of a
hymn.
I was reading him a sermon
by Charles Spurgeon called “The
Peculiar Sleep of the Beloved”
when he took his last breath. It was
a surreal experience, compounded
in significance by the complications
surrounding it.
I’ve thought a lot about my dad’s
death and how my faith helps me to God healed my dad. In heaven he
doesn’t have ALS or mental disorders.
I believe he watches me preach
on heaven’s own livestream, where
there is never any buffering.
But of course that isn’t the kind of
healing I had in mind while I was
praying. So what did God have in
mind?
I don’t believe God gave my
dad a disease or took pleasure in
his suffering. But I’ve begun to think
there were some reasons behind why
God did not heal my dad in this life.
I can’t see it all, but I sense there’s
meaning there, probably many layers
Solutions 33