The morning of July 6th was quite ordinary, I got up and shuffled around the kitchen looking for something to eat. I was happy to see the influx of moths and butterflies were no longer present on the veranda. I was tired of my nanny’s conspiracy theories that they symbolized something sinister. My mum called for me and I made my way to her room.
“Get ready, we need to leave and go to the hospital,” she instructed.
I knew the drill, I wasn’t going to make a case for breakfast but I knew that it was probably urgent if we had to leave that early. I had barely started showering when my mother knocked violently at my door and said we had to leave.
The car ride was silent and my mother only said, “the doctors said daddy isn’t doing well.”
I nodded and remained silent until we got to the hospital. Machines flanked either side of my father in the ICU and my mother and I took each of his hands and started praying. The doctors came in and out but it seemed like he was unconscious, his eyes half open and mouth forced wide by breathing or feeding tubes.
I prayed in every language I knew, I prayed in English I prayed in the spirt, I prayed as hard as I ever did but his hands remained cold. We took a break and went to get some tea on our way my mother got a call and she said we had to go back to the room. We got there I managed to catch a glimpse of the monitors before the doctor called us into his office.
“We tried everything we could,” my mum let out a scream and collapsed into my arms as the doctor confirmed everything the monitor hinted. My dad was gone, he was dead. My life as I knew it, was forever changed.
His death tore a hole in my heart, and I yearned desperately to fill it. I wouldn’t say that I was mad at God, but I was skeptical. I prayed with everything I had and it didn’t work. And so I looked to dark bottles with bitter substances but there was no filling. I turned to the guy I was dating desperate for him to be a father but what can a 19-year-old know about fathering. I looked everywhere but turned up empty. Until one day, alone, filled with suicidal ideations I decided to give it one more shot. To turn back to the God of my youth and ask him to fill this hole.
I wish I could say that it happened easily or automatically. It was and still is a journey of turning the emptiness over back to God and asking Him to fill me up. I surrendered and continue to surrender asking God to guide me and to lead me. I had to let go of the expectation that a boyfriend can father me, or that the bottom of a bottle can soothe me. Instead, I turn to him and look to the author and the finisher of my faith.
He’s taken me on a journey sometimes along the way I have been stubborn and rushed back to comfort. And even there He fathered me, he let me feel the disappointment that comes from anchoring my confidence in anyone other than Himself. His is a love that I can not find anywhere else. The absence of my earthly father has shown me who my heavenly father is. The one I can lean on, the one I turn to in times of need the only one who I can call on. Sit at His feet and play just as I would with my dad. He hears me, He guides me and He heals me.
He is Jireh the God, of more than enough, His love is more than enough to carry me. And now, after all these years He still fathers me.