Gay's Testimony
Once I found out my Dad had cancer, it didn’t take very long. It was six short weeks from the day of his diagnosis, to the day he passed away. On April 9, 1999 Dad went home to be with the Lord, and my life would be forever changed.
I wasn’t a Christian at the time of my Dad’s illness, but I was very close to him. He was a huge part of my life. I considered him my best friend, as I do with my husband. He was my confidant, the one I went to for advice. Someone I laughed with and cried to, he was always there to take time for me and comfort me.
About three weeks into Dad’s illness, my aunt called to see how everything was going. By this time, a lot had happened in those three weeks. The doctors had diagnosed him with liver cancer saying there was a large tumor in the middle of his liver, along with fingers attached and into the bio-ducts. They put a drain tube in, since Dad was jaundice and that helped drain some of the poison out of his system. It helped him out, and he didn’t look so yellow. The doctors in Mount Clemens told us that there was nothing more they could do for Dad, and he probably wouldn’t live to see his next Christmas. So we decided to take Dad to Carmona’s Cancer Institution in Detroit for a second opinion. The trip to Carmona’s took its toll on Dad. Not only did we find out the same information from the doctors there as well, but then Dad’s drain tube worked its way out and he was suffering more from the jaundice. The doctors informed us that it would be too hard on Dad to try to put the tube back in, but if they didn’t, the poison would continue to fill his body. A few days after we came back from Carmona’s, we went to the hospital to see Dad, only to find he wasn’t in his room. Fear engulfed us as we were informed that he had a small stroke and they moved him. The doctors suggested we should call hospice and take Dad home, which we did.
Everything was happening so fast, and it only had been three weeks since we received all this information. We hadn’t even had a chance to try any treatment of any sort and I was in shock. When my aunt called to see how my Dad was doing, I had a lot to tell her. As tears streamed down my face, the reality of everything took hold.
My aunt paused for a few minutes after I filled her in, and then she asked if she could ask me a few questions about Dad. Of course I didn’t mind, she could ask me anything she wanted to. She told me, First I needed to prepare myself that my Dad might not make it through this. I quietly told her, “I know.”
She asked me, “Does your dad know the Lord?” I was kind of taken back. I guess I really didn’t know what she was going to ask me.
“Dad knows and believes there is a God,” I said.
“Well honey there’s a little bit more to it than just knowing there is a God. If your dad was to die tomorrow would he be worthy enough to go to Heaven?” she asked.
“Aunt Paula,” I said. “I consider Dad a good person, he’s caring, he’s loving, he’s a hard worker, and it’s not like he ever did anything really bad in his life. And anyone that knows Dad loves him.”
“I know how loving and caring your dad is honey, but there’s more a little more to it for us to make it into Heaven,” she answered.
More to it, what does she mean that there’s more to it? I thought. By this time I was shaking from my head to my toes knowing in my heart that I couldn’t answer those questions for my Dad because in all reality I decided I couldn’t answer them for myself. Was I worthy enough to go to heaven if I was to die tomorrow? I’m a pretty good person. I’m a good wife and mother. I take our two young children to Sunday school. I never really did anything really bad in my life, so was I worthy enough to go to Heaven? How come I couldn’t answer that? How come, I can’t answer that for Dad, when he’s a good person? Before I knew what was happening, I voiced my concerns out loud. I told my aunt, through tears streaming down my face, that I was sorry, I guess I couldn’t answer those questions for my Dad, because in reality, I couldn’t answer them for myself. “So, Aunt Paula, am I worthy enough to go to heaven?” I asked. “You know me, you know who I am, and what I’m like. Am I good enough that if I was to die tomorrow that I would go to heaven?” The other end of the phone became quiet and all I could hear was the sniffling of my own tears.
When she broke the silence, she asked me with the sweetest, most loving voice, “Well honey, do you want to rectify that tonight? Do you want to know without a shadow of a doubt, that you will go to heaven tonight if you were to die.”
“Yes, I do.” I was led to repeat after my aunt, the prayer of Salvation. All of a sudden I was asking Jesus to come into my heart! When we were done, she was rejoicing and told me that the Lord and his angels were rejoicing also in Heaven, because now I was born again. I was dumbfounded. I asked her, if that was it? That’s all I had to do?
“Yes, for now that is all you have to do. You will know later as you’re being guided by the Holy Spirit what to do. Just start reading your bible and start staying for the church service, not just Sunday school. In the meantime we need to pray for your dad. Pray for his salvation. Just in case this is his time to go home to be with the Lord, he needs to be spiritually ready,” she said.
“In the meantime,” she continued, “let me talk to Uncle Jim. It’s time that we make the trip down, to spend some time with your dad.” Within a few days they arrived at Dad’s house.
I made it to Dad’s house one day, and the door to his room was shut. Aunt Paula told me that Uncle Jim was in there, having a personal conversation with my dad. Uncle Jim came out of Dad’s room, and said to me, “You don’t have to worry about seeing your dad again one day. You will see him in Heaven.”
Everyday, for the next three weeks, I was on my hands and knees begging the Lord to heal my Dad. “Save him, please, God!” I would cry out. “I am a new Christian, and you can do all things, Lord. Please! I beg you. You can do this, I know you can heal him.” This was my prayer everyday as I would prepare myself to travel the one hour trip to Mount Clemens to take care of Dad, because by this time he was home with Hospice care.
One day, the Hospice nurse came in to check on Dad, and I could tell he was getting worse. Dad was in a lot of pain that day and was having a hard time communicating with the nurse. It’s like, he knew what she was saying, but was having a hard time speaking to her. She sat down with all of us, and explained the changes that Dad’s body was going to have to go through until the end came. That was hard. The next morning as I was praying, I found myself asking God not to let him go through all that suffering. I would pray that the Lord would take him before he would go through all the stages Hospice had informed us about. I also prayed through tears that God would give me that deep down feeling, when my dad wasn’t going to make it through another day. Because I just had to be there, I didn’t want to leave him if he wasn’t going to make it another day. “Please, Lord,” I cried, “let me know when I need to stay with my Dad.”
I was with him, along with my siblings, all day everyday; we took turns taking care of him. I would get there in the morning, and then go home sometime after supper. A few days later, as I knelt beside his bed, I started humming Amazing Grace. He opened his eyes (he couldn’t speak at this time that was one of the stages hospice talked about) and he looked at me. As tears ran down my face, I knew he wasn’t going to make it through the night. I called Brad, my husband, and told him that I wasn’t coming home that night. That I didn’t think my dad was going to make it through the night, and I needed to be there. Brad wanted to know how I knew; he asked if Hospice had said anything. I told him no, they didn’t. In all reality, Dad’s body was supposed to go through some more stages. But I felt in my heart that he wasn’t going to make it through the night. I knew that feeling was from the Lord. I didn’t tell any of my siblings about my feeling. This was all too new to me, so that was kept between me, Brad, and God. Brad offered to come and stay with me, but I encouraged him to stay with our two children. I felt like they at least needed one parent to be with them since their mother had spent most of the last six weeks down in Mount Clemens, helping taking care of their granddad.
I went back into Dad’s room, and I decided I needed to tell him good-bye. This was very important. The hospice nurse told us we all needed to have time spent with him and tell him good-bye. She said the hearing was the last to go, so we should talk to him normal and tell him we were going to be ok, even if we didn’t feel like it at the time. I knelt down beside his bed, took his hand in mine, and he opened his eyes and gave me a weak smile. He watched me the whole time as I told him how much I would miss him. “I love you,” I said, as the tears streamed down my face. “And I don’t know what I will do without you, but I will figure it out and I will be ok.” He tried to speak, his mouth would move, but no words were there. I told him, “It was ok, you don’t have to say anything, I already know what you want me to know, and I will never forget our conversations. I will hold them dear to my heart!” When I was done, other family went in and out of his bedroom, having their own time spent with Dad. It was a very emotional time for everyone. It was late evening when I entered his room again, I was talking to him in general about some certain memories, and Dad kept looking at the clock and then looking back at me. It finally dawned on me what he was doing. He was wondering why I was still there. He would get after me when 6:00 in the evening came, because he told me that I had two young children at home, and that I have been here all day and it was time for me to go home and spend some time with them. He knew that by the time I got home, I would only have a hour and a half to be with the kids before bed time. I smiled and told him I knew it was late, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I was right where I needed to be, and that I had already talked to Brad, and he was with the children. He tried to speak, and I told him I wouldn’t listen to him anyways, that I wasn’t going anywhere.
More tears came as I told Dad, “I know I told you goodbye, but I want you to know that I changed my mind.” He looked at me with a puzzled look on his face. I told him, “I am not going to sit here and tell you goodbye, when I know there are no goodbyes in Heaven. I will see you again someday!”I smiled and kind of chuckled between tears. Because I really felt I had seen something in his eyes that night a glimmer of hope, a peacefulness, a confirmation of what I said was true. Yes, that is what I had seen.
I stayed the night in Dad’s lazy boy chair that was in his bedroom. I laid there listening to him breathe until I finally fell asleep. It was 3:00 am and I was awakened by my uncle. He wondered if Dad should have more morphine. He seemed a little restless and Hospice said to keep him comfortable. He asked me if I would give it to him, he said, “Your dad seems to respond to your voice.”
I proceeded to talk to Dad and to tell him it was me and that he needed to help me out, so I could give him his medicine, and then he could rest easier. Sure enough, he responded to my voice, and I whispered a, “Thank you Lord,” for I knew that Dad could still hear me. It only took a few minutes and his breathing had changed. You could tell he was resting more peaceful. Back in the chair, I laid there some more and listen to him breathe. As I laid there, I watched the clock tick by and I was thinking and praying, “Lord, it is almost morning, and I really felt in my heart that Dad would pass away… please Lord don’t let him suffer… Please take him home to be with you.” I finally fell asleep, only to wake up at 5:30 am and Dad had passed away. I was almost in shock. I thought Thank you Lord, for giving me the instinct to stay here and be with Dad because the Lord knew that I needed to be here until the end. Now what do we do I thought, he’s really gone.
The next four days were nothing but a blur. We had the showing and the funeral, but we managed to get through it all. There were lots of tears, but none from me. I told my Dad that I was going to be alright, so therefore I knew there was no room for crying.
Several months later my cousin (Aunt Paula’s daughter), started having dreams. Vivid dreams with exact details of my life. Now, mind you, she lives in Wisconsin, several hundred miles away from me. She had only been in my home a few times, and that was years prior. Finally, she called her mom and asked her if everything was alright with me, because she had been having this reoccurring dream about me, and she was concerned that something wasn’t quite right. Aunt Paula told her daughter that she would call and check in on me. She called one morning, and in a general conversation preceded to ask me how I was doing since Dad died. I, of course, said I was okay. I mean, I told everyone that. Knowing in my heart that is not how I felt, though I refused to let anyone believe any different. Our conversation was pleasant as it always was, but when we hung up she called her daughter and confided that she didn’t think I was telling her everything. She told her that maybe she should pray about the dream some more and wait for God’s leading and if He wants her to call me, then maybe she should.
A few days later my cousin called me, she said, “I have something important to tell you. I have prayed about it several times and I feel the Lord will guide us in this conversation.” I was caught off guard, and didn’t really know what she was going to say. It’s not like we talked on the phone very often, so I was surprised that she called, let alone had something important to tell me. I felt my heart jump in my throat, and it starting to beat a little bit faster. “What is it?” I asked. She went on to tell me that she had this very vivid dream about me. She told me she thought about it a few times and thought that is was kind of odd, but then she didn’t think any more about it. A week later, she had it again and this time there was even a little bit more detail, and it caught her attention, so she called her mom. She asked her if she had talked to me lately and if I seemed alright. She said, “Gay this dream is so vivid. I know what you were wearing you had on jeans and a black t-shirt. You were standing in your home by a window that looked out to the gravel pit. There was a round table and you had your hand on the back of one of the wooden chairs. Don’t you have a big picture window in your house that overlooks the pit?” she asked. My voice was shaking and I told her I did, that it was my dining room. She proceeded to tell me that my hair was pulled back into a barrette and that a few tears started streaming down my face and it seemed that I was disgusted by them as I wiped them off my face, and shook my head.
“I was standing behind you when I saw this,” my cousin said. “And I reached up to comfort you and tell you it was ok when my hand stopped inches from your shoulder. I was frustrated by this and tried it again and again, but to no prevail I couldn’t comfort you.” I was in shock, because I knew actually what she was talking about and when it happened. Silent tears began to stream down my face as she was talking. She told me that she had prayed about this and that Aunt Paula had too, and she felt that the Lord wanted her to intercede on his behalf because I had built up a wall that no one could get through and comfort me after Dad died, not even Jesus. She said, “Did you tell your dad you would be alright after he died?”
I thought, how did she know that I didn’t tell anyone that. Between tears, I told her, “Yes, I did tell Dad that.”
She said, “This is what the Lord has said about the dream. Since you told your dad that you would be alright after he passed you felt you couldn’t even cry and grieve for him because that meant you weren’t alright! You felt that would be letting him down if you cried for him because you missed him so. But there were days that did come and you did shed a few tears, always by yourself you refused to cry in front of anyone and when the tears did come you wouldn’t let them last long. Because you reminded yourself of the promise you made. That is why you would wipe them away in disgust. You built a wall around you, refusing to let anyone in to tell you it was ok to cry, that we need to grieve. God used my dream to tell you, you need to grieve for your dad, to heal and that it is ok to cry. Jesus grieved too. He grieved about losing his good friend Lazarus. Jesus knows how you feel, but you have to bring down that wall for him to help you through this time in your life.”
I was crying pretty good by now and I was in awe that this is how God worked in our lives. I was a new Christian and didn’t know much about the Bible and God knew that. So he sent someone miles and miles away, to have a dream about me, to tell me it was ok to cry and to miss my Dad. I thanked her for having this dream and for contacting me. That it meant a great deal and that I would never forget it. That was the day that I started to grieve and heal from the loss of someone so dear to me. Months and months had pass that I built this wall up and in one small conversation the Lord brought it crumbling down and I was so grateful.
God has proven to be my rock in my life and I have been so blessed by how he has used this circumstance for his glory. This is one of my greatest life lessons, “One life so dear to my heart had to die so another life could be saved… MINE!”
Thank you Lord, it has been incredible journey I look forward everyday to see what you have in store for me and my family! Praise be to the Lord!
I wasn’t a Christian at the time of my Dad’s illness, but I was very close to him. He was a huge part of my life. I considered him my best friend, as I do with my husband. He was my confidant, the one I went to for advice. Someone I laughed with and cried to, he was always there to take time for me and comfort me.
About three weeks into Dad’s illness, my aunt called to see how everything was going. By this time, a lot had happened in those three weeks. The doctors had diagnosed him with liver cancer saying there was a large tumor in the middle of his liver, along with fingers attached and into the bio-ducts. They put a drain tube in, since Dad was jaundice and that helped drain some of the poison out of his system. It helped him out, and he didn’t look so yellow. The doctors in Mount Clemens told us that there was nothing more they could do for Dad, and he probably wouldn’t live to see his next Christmas. So we decided to take Dad to Carmona’s Cancer Institution in Detroit for a second opinion. The trip to Carmona’s took its toll on Dad. Not only did we find out the same information from the doctors there as well, but then Dad’s drain tube worked its way out and he was suffering more from the jaundice. The doctors informed us that it would be too hard on Dad to try to put the tube back in, but if they didn’t, the poison would continue to fill his body. A few days after we came back from Carmona’s, we went to the hospital to see Dad, only to find he wasn’t in his room. Fear engulfed us as we were informed that he had a small stroke and they moved him. The doctors suggested we should call hospice and take Dad home, which we did.
Everything was happening so fast, and it only had been three weeks since we received all this information. We hadn’t even had a chance to try any treatment of any sort and I was in shock. When my aunt called to see how my Dad was doing, I had a lot to tell her. As tears streamed down my face, the reality of everything took hold.
My aunt paused for a few minutes after I filled her in, and then she asked if she could ask me a few questions about Dad. Of course I didn’t mind, she could ask me anything she wanted to. She told me, First I needed to prepare myself that my Dad might not make it through this. I quietly told her, “I know.”
She asked me, “Does your dad know the Lord?” I was kind of taken back. I guess I really didn’t know what she was going to ask me.
“Dad knows and believes there is a God,” I said.
“Well honey there’s a little bit more to it than just knowing there is a God. If your dad was to die tomorrow would he be worthy enough to go to Heaven?” she asked.
“Aunt Paula,” I said. “I consider Dad a good person, he’s caring, he’s loving, he’s a hard worker, and it’s not like he ever did anything really bad in his life. And anyone that knows Dad loves him.”
“I know how loving and caring your dad is honey, but there’s more a little more to it for us to make it into Heaven,” she answered.
More to it, what does she mean that there’s more to it? I thought. By this time I was shaking from my head to my toes knowing in my heart that I couldn’t answer those questions for my Dad because in all reality I decided I couldn’t answer them for myself. Was I worthy enough to go to heaven if I was to die tomorrow? I’m a pretty good person. I’m a good wife and mother. I take our two young children to Sunday school. I never really did anything really bad in my life, so was I worthy enough to go to Heaven? How come I couldn’t answer that? How come, I can’t answer that for Dad, when he’s a good person? Before I knew what was happening, I voiced my concerns out loud. I told my aunt, through tears streaming down my face, that I was sorry, I guess I couldn’t answer those questions for my Dad, because in reality, I couldn’t answer them for myself. “So, Aunt Paula, am I worthy enough to go to heaven?” I asked. “You know me, you know who I am, and what I’m like. Am I good enough that if I was to die tomorrow that I would go to heaven?” The other end of the phone became quiet and all I could hear was the sniffling of my own tears.
When she broke the silence, she asked me with the sweetest, most loving voice, “Well honey, do you want to rectify that tonight? Do you want to know without a shadow of a doubt, that you will go to heaven tonight if you were to die.”
“Yes, I do.” I was led to repeat after my aunt, the prayer of Salvation. All of a sudden I was asking Jesus to come into my heart! When we were done, she was rejoicing and told me that the Lord and his angels were rejoicing also in Heaven, because now I was born again. I was dumbfounded. I asked her, if that was it? That’s all I had to do?
“Yes, for now that is all you have to do. You will know later as you’re being guided by the Holy Spirit what to do. Just start reading your bible and start staying for the church service, not just Sunday school. In the meantime we need to pray for your dad. Pray for his salvation. Just in case this is his time to go home to be with the Lord, he needs to be spiritually ready,” she said.
“In the meantime,” she continued, “let me talk to Uncle Jim. It’s time that we make the trip down, to spend some time with your dad.” Within a few days they arrived at Dad’s house.
I made it to Dad’s house one day, and the door to his room was shut. Aunt Paula told me that Uncle Jim was in there, having a personal conversation with my dad. Uncle Jim came out of Dad’s room, and said to me, “You don’t have to worry about seeing your dad again one day. You will see him in Heaven.”
Everyday, for the next three weeks, I was on my hands and knees begging the Lord to heal my Dad. “Save him, please, God!” I would cry out. “I am a new Christian, and you can do all things, Lord. Please! I beg you. You can do this, I know you can heal him.” This was my prayer everyday as I would prepare myself to travel the one hour trip to Mount Clemens to take care of Dad, because by this time he was home with Hospice care.
One day, the Hospice nurse came in to check on Dad, and I could tell he was getting worse. Dad was in a lot of pain that day and was having a hard time communicating with the nurse. It’s like, he knew what she was saying, but was having a hard time speaking to her. She sat down with all of us, and explained the changes that Dad’s body was going to have to go through until the end came. That was hard. The next morning as I was praying, I found myself asking God not to let him go through all that suffering. I would pray that the Lord would take him before he would go through all the stages Hospice had informed us about. I also prayed through tears that God would give me that deep down feeling, when my dad wasn’t going to make it through another day. Because I just had to be there, I didn’t want to leave him if he wasn’t going to make it another day. “Please, Lord,” I cried, “let me know when I need to stay with my Dad.”
I was with him, along with my siblings, all day everyday; we took turns taking care of him. I would get there in the morning, and then go home sometime after supper. A few days later, as I knelt beside his bed, I started humming Amazing Grace. He opened his eyes (he couldn’t speak at this time that was one of the stages hospice talked about) and he looked at me. As tears ran down my face, I knew he wasn’t going to make it through the night. I called Brad, my husband, and told him that I wasn’t coming home that night. That I didn’t think my dad was going to make it through the night, and I needed to be there. Brad wanted to know how I knew; he asked if Hospice had said anything. I told him no, they didn’t. In all reality, Dad’s body was supposed to go through some more stages. But I felt in my heart that he wasn’t going to make it through the night. I knew that feeling was from the Lord. I didn’t tell any of my siblings about my feeling. This was all too new to me, so that was kept between me, Brad, and God. Brad offered to come and stay with me, but I encouraged him to stay with our two children. I felt like they at least needed one parent to be with them since their mother had spent most of the last six weeks down in Mount Clemens, helping taking care of their granddad.
I went back into Dad’s room, and I decided I needed to tell him good-bye. This was very important. The hospice nurse told us we all needed to have time spent with him and tell him good-bye. She said the hearing was the last to go, so we should talk to him normal and tell him we were going to be ok, even if we didn’t feel like it at the time. I knelt down beside his bed, took his hand in mine, and he opened his eyes and gave me a weak smile. He watched me the whole time as I told him how much I would miss him. “I love you,” I said, as the tears streamed down my face. “And I don’t know what I will do without you, but I will figure it out and I will be ok.” He tried to speak, his mouth would move, but no words were there. I told him, “It was ok, you don’t have to say anything, I already know what you want me to know, and I will never forget our conversations. I will hold them dear to my heart!” When I was done, other family went in and out of his bedroom, having their own time spent with Dad. It was a very emotional time for everyone. It was late evening when I entered his room again, I was talking to him in general about some certain memories, and Dad kept looking at the clock and then looking back at me. It finally dawned on me what he was doing. He was wondering why I was still there. He would get after me when 6:00 in the evening came, because he told me that I had two young children at home, and that I have been here all day and it was time for me to go home and spend some time with them. He knew that by the time I got home, I would only have a hour and a half to be with the kids before bed time. I smiled and told him I knew it was late, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I was right where I needed to be, and that I had already talked to Brad, and he was with the children. He tried to speak, and I told him I wouldn’t listen to him anyways, that I wasn’t going anywhere.
More tears came as I told Dad, “I know I told you goodbye, but I want you to know that I changed my mind.” He looked at me with a puzzled look on his face. I told him, “I am not going to sit here and tell you goodbye, when I know there are no goodbyes in Heaven. I will see you again someday!”I smiled and kind of chuckled between tears. Because I really felt I had seen something in his eyes that night a glimmer of hope, a peacefulness, a confirmation of what I said was true. Yes, that is what I had seen.
I stayed the night in Dad’s lazy boy chair that was in his bedroom. I laid there listening to him breathe until I finally fell asleep. It was 3:00 am and I was awakened by my uncle. He wondered if Dad should have more morphine. He seemed a little restless and Hospice said to keep him comfortable. He asked me if I would give it to him, he said, “Your dad seems to respond to your voice.”
I proceeded to talk to Dad and to tell him it was me and that he needed to help me out, so I could give him his medicine, and then he could rest easier. Sure enough, he responded to my voice, and I whispered a, “Thank you Lord,” for I knew that Dad could still hear me. It only took a few minutes and his breathing had changed. You could tell he was resting more peaceful. Back in the chair, I laid there some more and listen to him breathe. As I laid there, I watched the clock tick by and I was thinking and praying, “Lord, it is almost morning, and I really felt in my heart that Dad would pass away… please Lord don’t let him suffer… Please take him home to be with you.” I finally fell asleep, only to wake up at 5:30 am and Dad had passed away. I was almost in shock. I thought Thank you Lord, for giving me the instinct to stay here and be with Dad because the Lord knew that I needed to be here until the end. Now what do we do I thought, he’s really gone.
The next four days were nothing but a blur. We had the showing and the funeral, but we managed to get through it all. There were lots of tears, but none from me. I told my Dad that I was going to be alright, so therefore I knew there was no room for crying.
Several months later my cousin (Aunt Paula’s daughter), started having dreams. Vivid dreams with exact details of my life. Now, mind you, she lives in Wisconsin, several hundred miles away from me. She had only been in my home a few times, and that was years prior. Finally, she called her mom and asked her if everything was alright with me, because she had been having this reoccurring dream about me, and she was concerned that something wasn’t quite right. Aunt Paula told her daughter that she would call and check in on me. She called one morning, and in a general conversation preceded to ask me how I was doing since Dad died. I, of course, said I was okay. I mean, I told everyone that. Knowing in my heart that is not how I felt, though I refused to let anyone believe any different. Our conversation was pleasant as it always was, but when we hung up she called her daughter and confided that she didn’t think I was telling her everything. She told her that maybe she should pray about the dream some more and wait for God’s leading and if He wants her to call me, then maybe she should.
A few days later my cousin called me, she said, “I have something important to tell you. I have prayed about it several times and I feel the Lord will guide us in this conversation.” I was caught off guard, and didn’t really know what she was going to say. It’s not like we talked on the phone very often, so I was surprised that she called, let alone had something important to tell me. I felt my heart jump in my throat, and it starting to beat a little bit faster. “What is it?” I asked. She went on to tell me that she had this very vivid dream about me. She told me she thought about it a few times and thought that is was kind of odd, but then she didn’t think any more about it. A week later, she had it again and this time there was even a little bit more detail, and it caught her attention, so she called her mom. She asked her if she had talked to me lately and if I seemed alright. She said, “Gay this dream is so vivid. I know what you were wearing you had on jeans and a black t-shirt. You were standing in your home by a window that looked out to the gravel pit. There was a round table and you had your hand on the back of one of the wooden chairs. Don’t you have a big picture window in your house that overlooks the pit?” she asked. My voice was shaking and I told her I did, that it was my dining room. She proceeded to tell me that my hair was pulled back into a barrette and that a few tears started streaming down my face and it seemed that I was disgusted by them as I wiped them off my face, and shook my head.
“I was standing behind you when I saw this,” my cousin said. “And I reached up to comfort you and tell you it was ok when my hand stopped inches from your shoulder. I was frustrated by this and tried it again and again, but to no prevail I couldn’t comfort you.” I was in shock, because I knew actually what she was talking about and when it happened. Silent tears began to stream down my face as she was talking. She told me that she had prayed about this and that Aunt Paula had too, and she felt that the Lord wanted her to intercede on his behalf because I had built up a wall that no one could get through and comfort me after Dad died, not even Jesus. She said, “Did you tell your dad you would be alright after he died?”
I thought, how did she know that I didn’t tell anyone that. Between tears, I told her, “Yes, I did tell Dad that.”
She said, “This is what the Lord has said about the dream. Since you told your dad that you would be alright after he passed you felt you couldn’t even cry and grieve for him because that meant you weren’t alright! You felt that would be letting him down if you cried for him because you missed him so. But there were days that did come and you did shed a few tears, always by yourself you refused to cry in front of anyone and when the tears did come you wouldn’t let them last long. Because you reminded yourself of the promise you made. That is why you would wipe them away in disgust. You built a wall around you, refusing to let anyone in to tell you it was ok to cry, that we need to grieve. God used my dream to tell you, you need to grieve for your dad, to heal and that it is ok to cry. Jesus grieved too. He grieved about losing his good friend Lazarus. Jesus knows how you feel, but you have to bring down that wall for him to help you through this time in your life.”
I was crying pretty good by now and I was in awe that this is how God worked in our lives. I was a new Christian and didn’t know much about the Bible and God knew that. So he sent someone miles and miles away, to have a dream about me, to tell me it was ok to cry and to miss my Dad. I thanked her for having this dream and for contacting me. That it meant a great deal and that I would never forget it. That was the day that I started to grieve and heal from the loss of someone so dear to me. Months and months had pass that I built this wall up and in one small conversation the Lord brought it crumbling down and I was so grateful.
God has proven to be my rock in my life and I have been so blessed by how he has used this circumstance for his glory. This is one of my greatest life lessons, “One life so dear to my heart had to die so another life could be saved… MINE!”
Thank you Lord, it has been incredible journey I look forward everyday to see what you have in store for me and my family! Praise be to the Lord!
