Twas a silent night

It is currently 1:35 AM – a rainy Monday morning.

Yesterday night, Lewis and Janet came over to relax and also with the intention to pray.

Yet before we get there some explaining is necessary…..
The Lord has been highlighting the brokenness in my heart concerning the wounds I had received from my father.
I’ve realized that there are suppressed emotions and memories, hiding beneath the slightly ignorant mindset of Albert.
The emphasis of the father’s heart began when I initiated Spring cleaning…. in winter.
As I cleaned my house and reorganized it into my sheer artistic genius idea, I stumbled upon memories of my long forgotten father.
I found a letter that he had written me for my birthday, and I began to weep in reminiscence of him.
Had a seed of sorrow been planted in my heart?
To be more exact, my Father in heaven had stuck a surgeon’s needle through my calloused heart, and was preparing to pry it open.
Though, this would happen over a process of months…
(Yet the truth is that it has been happening for a process of years)

And now we come to two weeks  ago, when both Pastor Ryan and Joseph initiate conversations of my father, and ask me strenuous yet unveiling questions
about my relationship with my father.
Yet the only thing I can truly do is listen and simply nod my head in expectation of what is to come.

Which now chronologically brings us to today. (or yesterday to be exact).
As we “randomly” begin watching home videos of my family with elegant classical music in the background, I slowly break down and make a run for the bathroom.
And there I weep reminiscently of who my father was, and how great it would have been to have him here……
A joyous family- a full, complete, joyful family… I will never taste such a glance of this heaven  till death do me part.
To lean upon a man in full confidence, and to have no fears or any slight worries of judgment or abandonment…
Was this really in my heart?

And as we begin to pray, God speaks.
He tells me of who I am to become. (not what I will do)                For there are far more important things in life than ministry and those verbal actions.
What we need today are not more ministers and pastors.
What we need are fathers- fathers who will love in heart, time, feeling, emotion…. fully given not to a calling…. but fully given to a person…
Is this not the call of character?  To lay down our business of ministry and to give ourselves to sons and daughters….. and allowing them to rob us of our time and money…                ..our efforts and strivings….. even robbing us of our own callings and destinies, if it means that they can be exalted above our own heads.

This should be the case, should it not?
Hear this prayer.
May I never become a minister or pastor who is too busy running the church, that I cannot actively pursue my sons and daughters in love.
May I never become too occupied with meetings that I cannot show the love that is in my heart in the full obedience of action and surrender.
Your life above mine.

What people need are not more ministers… it’s love.  A father’s love that would hold them tight until every chain falls loose unto the ground.
There is no need to name the chains or to bind the darkness.  For love is the antidote to every broken heart.  Love is the answer to every hurting cry.
Make me a father that could shepherd sons and daughters, not merely sheep and goats.

Advertisement