As a minister I have shepherded people through the dreaded valley of death, and have wandered through its chasms myself. A few years ago those paths converged when was summoned to minister to an unchurched, terminally
ill man who asked me to do his upcoming funeral.
My heart was torn in two at this request. On the one hand, I wanted to faithfully discharge my spiritual service and provide him with hope and eternal confidence. On the other hand, I was not an outsider in this particular man’s life – I was his daughter, so I had to separate service from sorrow as began to walk the valley’s rugged edge.
To do this, I decided to deal with the spiritual aspect first because he had a brain tumor which was pressing on his short-term memory, and would eventually cause substantial confusion. I did not want him to think of me as the angel of death, so it seemed reasonable to deal with his faith-related questions while he still had moments of clarity.
It was during this time frame that I found myself pounding on my hallway wall, telling God I needed to hear my father say, “Lord Jesus, come into my heart.” I remember being very direct and specific. In fact, I probably told God, rather than asked Him. Anyway, as I said those words, the Master Soul Winner Himself stopped me and said: “No – you do not need to hear his words. You need to hear MY words. He doesn’t even know what I am doing in him.”
Those words have helped me ever since. In that narrow hallway, God opened up a wide margin of His grace and reminded me that He, and only He, the Shepherd, could open up the portals of eternal life for my father. I had to let go and place him in God’s hands. That freed me to give and receive support, and to embrace my father as a daughter.