A Father's Hope

God in His wisdom has given us the Bible to lean on for His Word. It always amazes me how I can turn to Him and search in the Bible and find people who have been through what I am going through, or have thought the things that I am thinking. As I reflect on the recent loss of my friends’ son, I remember King David who bore the loss of a son born to him out of wedlock in ancient Israel. Despite why this happened to him, David who has been described by the Lord as a “Man after (God’s) own heart,” deals with the real pain of his son being sick and the weight of his death in the end.

For seven days David laid on the floor, denying himself food, denying himself water, denying himself comfort, denying himself even the privilege to be near his son. There is not a thing in this world that a parent would not deny themselves if they knew it would bring long life to their children. David wept, he cried out to God to the dismay to his servants and religious leaders, and it was not until the boy died that he picked himself up. The first thing he did was to clean himself up and return to the House of the Lord to worship.

I pray with all of my heart I will never have to know what it is like to lose a child. I pray also that the days that I will lose my wife, brothers, sisters and parents will be far off. But I also hope and pray that should I endure such tragedy that I will have the mental and physical strength to worship the Lord.

After David worships the Lord, he returns to his home and his servants are perplexed because it was the custom in that day to mourn loved one’s after they died for several days and go without eating, or washing. David says these words to them: “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said; ‘Who knows, the LORD may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’ But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will never return to me.” (2 Samuel 12:22, 23)

I do not present these verses to say we should not mourn the loss of our loved ones, but simply to share David’s assurance of who God is, and the hope he continued to have in Him. As Christians we have the hope of Heaven. We have the hope that Jesus gave us on the cross as payment of our sins that we will rise again one day and join Him and all the saints.

This is for Deacon. May his life be a testimony always of the beauty of God’s creation, and how much He loves us through the storms in our lives. Tell Jesus, hi!