For the past two weeks I have struggled with the thought of loosing my dad. I mean this is the reality. His health has declined rapidly and we don't know if we have any other options. Time does not seem to be on our hands. This makes me break inside. I won't have my father walk me down the isle, he won't get to meet my children and teach them how to ride or what a steer is or a heifer. It seems stupid in some sense and rather selfish because he so desperately wants to stop the pain, but I don't want to let go. I am not ready to let go. I want him to at least meet my future niece. That means four more months of suffering.
What gets me the most is the torture of watching him suffer in pain. It's indescribable and after a while you start to become numb to it. It sucks. Yet I pray day after day to my heavenly Father and to His Son and I find myself feeling unheard and desolate inside. I feel that God has given me so many dreams of my dad walking and then to wake up and see that he is still bedridden and restless, well, that's unfair. I am 23, unmarried and so desperately wanting my dad to see me finish becoming a woman.
Then I have moments where I see my younger siblings and how they are getting jiped. My little sister won't have him to see her graduate and have him walk her down the isle. It's not fair. My little brother is just going to college, he won't get my dad's advice or his assurance that everything will work out. My brother Jared won't get my dad's approval when he finishes college or when he introduces his future bride. My older siblings won't have him there to visit and see their kids and receive parenting advice. My dad may leave us before any of this is possible. It scares me and makes me nervous that I may never get to form these memories with him.
I feel that God has not heard our desperation. I feel unheard and isolated at times. Where is He?
Dearest friend, as difficult and heartbreaking as this was to read and process, I am further saddened just knowing it is only a minuscule fraction of the difficulty and heartbreak you are living. All of these reasons, and more, are valid and worth being angry about. There is nothing that should keep you from allowing these emotions to play out; to feel desperate, selfish, tortured, and jipped. To wonder how a god you have devoted your life and purpose to seems to have deserted you is incredibly valid -- there is always a season for such emotions. But one thing I am grateful to have been reminded of time and time again by YOU is that He is always there and there is always beauty in the pain, in the disaster, in the hurt. You can't feel that or understand that now, that's perfectly reasonable. Pain, heartbreak, suffering -- these seem needless to us because we don't like bearing the thought of what's to come from them. But pain, heartbreak, and suffering will be rewarded with everlasting life for those who are so dedicated as to question Him in the deepest, darkest times of desperation. Keep asking, questioning, being angry -- this is your time for that and He does not fault you for it. I love you, Hannah.
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