Blessed Father's Day

How fast a year has passed and the events that came along with it...last year's father's day was shrouded with clouds of sadness. I remembered going for my gynae's visit with Darrell and was told that I had a blighted ovum and they needed to operate on me. Looking back at my entries, it seemed like a long time ago. I can still remember the look on my father's face - it was filled with sadness and pain. Both my father and father-in-law spoke nothing of father's day that year. I guess it just doesn't seem right to them to celebrate. That Saturday before father's day, I remembered Dan driving me in the spyder along Benjamin Sheares, perhaps to let the wind blow in my hair and to lift up my spirits. Well, inspite of the incident, it was very unlike me to miss father's day. So we decided to detour to Parkway Parade on our way home and we bought 2 cakes for our dear fathers. Well, a year has past eversince and this father's day is special. It is Dan's 1st father's day and our father's 1st grandfather's day and Dan's grandfather's great grandfather's day.

What do I make out of all of this? Through it all, I felt the Lord's presence in my life - not just during the joyous moments but especially through the sorrow filled times. His sustaining grace and mercy made it possible for me to look to Him in all of this. Ofttimes, we pray that these difficult moments may pass us by but perhaps, God meant for us to pass through these trials. The comfort is not in the removal of these trials but in trusting His hand which firmly upholds us through these trials.

How then do we pray when difficulties beset us? Do we pray for the Lord to remove the difficulties? Perhaps that is not always His plan. That we pray that the Lord would give us grace and strength through every trial. In recent times, this song has come to take a special place in my heart [especially the 2nd stanza]:

For Me to Live is Christ

There often are distractions from devotion to my Lord

I'm tempted with the things of earth and pleasures of this world

Lord may there be just one thing in my life I pursue

To know you Lord, to love you more, and be consumed with You.

Chorus:

For me to live is Christ and nothing more

For me to live is Christ whom I adore

Lord help me be, consumed with thee

So that for me to live is Christ

In my life there'll be trials and testings that He will ordained

But selfishly I ask Him for relief from all my pain

May I be so consumed with Him that even when I am tried

My only prayer and suffering is Christ be magnified

And when someday God calls me home through death's dark fearful door

To enter through eternity with Christ forever more

If on this earth my only goal in goodness and in pain

For me to live was Christ only

Then death, Lord, be my gain

May this prayer be the heartfelt prayer of our hearts.