Have you ever experienced a moment in your life where it feels like it went from peaceful to chaos really fast? Yeah? Me too. I want to prepare you–this is a wild ride, but it goes somewhere good.

Over a year ago now my dad suddenly had a stroke and I had no idea what that really meant. At the encouragement of some friends, I got on a plane from Mississippi to Texas to be there. As I ran through the airport and sat in the terminal, my heart felt weighted with the “what ifs”. I was in such a state of shock that I couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening so when I threw things into my suitcase, a black dress was in the mix. For a long time I had prepared myself that my dad would die young, and so I just thought, “the day is here”. On the other side of that darker thought, my mind was also processing all of the outcomes and how I would feel about each one. What if he did die? What if he didn’t?

As I sat on that plane I cried shamelessly and pleaded with the Lord to allow my dad to live longer. I felt in my heart that the Lord was not done redeeming his story and I wanted my dad to have the time to make right the ways he had hurt others and had been hurt himself. I know that in heaven he would be made whole of course, but he’d be leaving behind broken relationships with people who might never think good of him without some healing. I hated that so much.

A month or so before my dad had a stroke, I had been praying every day for my dad in a way that I hadn’t prayed for him in a very long time. Hoping for change had become disappointing and my heart couldn’t do it anymore, but this past summer my church prayed together for 21 days and I felt convicted to pray for the things and people that I had stopped praying for.

On day 12 of the 21 days of prayer, my dad called me on the phone. We talk maybe once a month, maybe, and it’s usually because I’m having car trouble or some other crisis, so I had no idea what to expect.

I answered the phone and he said, “Jessie, I want you to know that I love and appreciate you. I was up last night and I wrote down a list of all the times you’ve been there for me or tried to intentionally make plans to hang out with me. I’m sorry that I wasn’t present and I put work over you. I’m sorry that I was late to pick you up for the jazz night. I want you to know that I see you and I do care about the things going on in your life. I don’t call because sometimes I don’t know what to say and it’s hard for me to remember everything going on, because your life moves so fast and you’re so young. And remember that rooftop movie you bought us tickets for, but it got canceled because of COVID? Well, next time you’re in town save me a night and lets go do that. I love you and I am so proud of you.”

These words felt like a healing balm to my soul. As I sat there on my bed, with tears streaming down my face, all I could think was “oh my gosh, prayer works and God is good”. This is the first apology I have ever received from my dad that wasn’t laced with shame and more about him than the person he hurt. I knew and could see that God was doing something in him.

A few weeks later I called him, no answer. He called back, I missed it. Then the next day, he had a stroke.

So another thought I had on the plane was what if we never get to talk again and he doesn’t know I love him? Then the Lord settled my heart and said “Jessie, remember that phone call? He was saying he KNOWS you love him AND he loves you too”. So I knew in that moment, that if these were my dads last hours on Earth, he left knowing I loved him, and I can be at peace knowing we had as much closure as we could this side of heaven.

Then I thought of all the other people he didn’t get to have those healing conversations with and my heart ached for them and I cried, pleading harder for the sake of those people that I didn’t want carrying their hurt for the rest of their lives. Then God lovingly reminded me, that even without those conversations, God has personal relationships with each of those people and can heal those wounds even if the relationship isn’t healed between my dad and those people. Then my tears stopped and I felt peace in my heart, that whether my dad lived to be a 100 or if he passed away in the next few hours, God would bring good in the middle of the brokenness and the pain. Why? Because that is what he does. He brings darkness into the light. He turns mourning into joy.

That is the place my heart rested in as we stood by my dads bedside in the ICU. I had a peace that made no sense when you look at our family’s circumstances. I had so much faith that no matter what happened God is still good and faithful and kind. I was able to trust that his timeline and method of healing physical, spiritual, and mental wounds is often beyond my comprehension. I have seen so many times in my life how the Lord has mended together relationships and situations that even the most creative and wise person could not have orchestrated.

When God says we can trust him. He means it. When God says he will make all things new. He means it. But do we always understand what that looks like? Absolutely not. We often impress our own expectations of what God being “good” or “faithful” should look like and when he doesn’t deliver we lose hope or faith, but really we have a finite perspective of a moment in time that is but a grain of sand in the eyes of the God who sees all of time and stands outside of it.

Here’s the question I have for you–do you trust God no matter the outcome or is your faith shaken when what you believe should happen doesn’t? It’s a question I’m asking myself and it’s been challenging to trust in the Lord at times when my expectations aren’t fulfilled. My goodness though, can I just say how incredible it is when we learn a little bit at a time how to BELIEVE that the Lord is with us in each and every circumstance? That truth brings a peace unlike any other.

P.S.

Dad is alive and well. He drives, he has a job, and his jokes are annoying as ever. Thankful to get more time to roll my eyes at him. His words aren’t quite up to speed with his brain yet, but he’s improving every day. We’ve gotten to spend a lot of time exploring Houston and Jackson together and most of our outings are spent with him sneaking junk food he’s not supposed to be eating, haha.

I have watched God restore the relationships in my dad’s life that I hoped but wasn’t sure would ever be mended. All in all, the Lord is so good and I stand amazed.