My Weekend with My dad

It has taken these past two days for me to begin to summerize the events that took place this weekend with my dad.

It started saturday when Vanessa called me at the bookstore to tell me that my dad was coming up to visit me. I got out of work at 3:00 and by 3:30 I headed over to the hotel my dad was staying in.

My dad and I went out for dinner and my dad was the most opened he has ever been to me. and the following was said:

Dad-"Sara, I constantly feel as if I've got to go somewhere."

Me- "Where do you think that somewhere is? What exactly are you looking for?"

Dad "I don't know."

Then later on that night my Dad told me he would come to Vintage with me and HE DID!

On our way inside the mall for the service my dad said

"Do you have my old bible?"

"Yes, would you like it back?"

"No you can keep it, My cousin gave me one for my birthday. I've been reading it some."

"Thats cool, what book are you reading?"

"There's only one book."

"No, where did you start..the name."

"Well the beginning, thats where you start in a book isn't it."

"Well, some sections are just easier to read and understand maybe you should try something from the new testament it might help."

Then my dad and i went inside..he stayed for the service and afterwards on the way back in my dad said,

"Right now i just can't seem to commit myself to any belief, there are so many and many people believe in many different things, it just doesn't make sense."

And later when my dad and I were walking by the Disney store i was telling him about how I was thinking about my favorite Christmas as a kid.. and he said

"Funny, i was thinking about how much I screwed up."

"what do you mean?"

"Sara, do you realize how little i know about you?"

"Yes, i do."

"I didn't raise you kids, between shuffling you between babysisters, Brenda, Tyrell, MOM (my grandmother), and...(I knew he was thinking of CJ the woman he dated during my childhood years from my age of 6-15) they were the ones who raised you."

pause, long silence

"Dad, you did your very best in a very bad situation."

We said goodbye and exchanged our I love you's...and i went to work.

At work i was reflecting on my childhood and the fact that it was rough. I remembered all the times my father didn't do the right things (which was most of the time) but instead of feeling hurt, and pain, and sadness..i reflected back into the eyes of my father and the way that his eyes communicated. What pain, what guilt, what anxiety, and stress and I wept. I wept not because he had hurt me emotionally but because all that time he had a disturbance in his soul that he could never get rid of, he still has it.

I then thoguht of all the sermons i have heard about God weeping over our sins. For the longest time i mostly interpretated those sermons as saying that God wept because we had hurt his feelings and all God wanted was for us to love and accept him.

However, that day on my break in the bookstore i realized that maybe God doesn't weep because he needs us to love and accept him maybe he weeps because he realizes how much we need him to love and accept us. Maybe he weeps because he can't fully accept us until we have first believed in him, and maybe he weeps because he realizes that not all of those he has created will believe in the only one that can make their lives right.

My heart weeps for my dad because i know what his heart is longing for and i can't flip that switch on. Maybe my dad will never get saved but i have the love of christ in me and if i can give him a little bit of that love while he is still alive I will know that in some incomplete form i could add a small amount of peace to the turmoil in his heart.