Hope Without Limits

Being honest it doesn’t always feel that way. At least it hasn’t to me recently.  Anyone else agree?

I think that is why Our Heavenly Father created horizons.

Two weeks ago I had a dream about being intimately examined by a physician.  What he found he wanted to show to everyone.  That made me very uncomfortable even though I was covered and protected.  White and pure was what I saw that he wanted to show people.  The revelation that came immediately after the dream was that people that are much more educated and learned than I am want to learn of the intimate places My Heavenly Father, The Great Physician, and I have shared and what has come out of that.  The question I heard was “are you willing to be that transparent” because it made me really uncomfortable in the dream.  However it seemed like it was going to help a lot of people and they would be able to learn from it – like a teaching hospital.

What followed the revelation was the memory of when my father passed away and how excruciatingly painful that was for me.  And so from this intimate place, I share my experience with the hope that this will be a “teaching hospital” for those in the midst of grief.

When I was 11 my Dad experienced the first of 7 heart attacks; followed by multiple respiratory failures from  treatment for hemosiderosis (in laymen’s terms your body is basically rusting from the inside out); and finally pancreatic cancer.  Every time he went acute I made it back from Tennessee to Ontario to be by his side.  Until the final day of his life.

It was his birthday.  I called early in the morning and sang happy birthday to him over the phone [you may disagree, but my Dad thought Barbara Streisand had nothing on me 🙂 ].  According to my Mom, tears rolled down his cheek as he was no longer able to respond verbally.  A short time later I received a call that I needed to come quickly, symptoms made it evident his time was very short.  I left immediately on the first flight out.  He was still alive when I landed in the city where he lived.  But in the 20 minutes it took to drive to my parents apartment he transitioned from this world to heaven.

My perspective when I heard this news was I had failed my Father when he needed me most; I had failed my brother who left my father’s side to meet me at the airport and there was nothing I was ever going to be able to do to fix either of those things.  My pain expressed itself in a scream I can still hear.  However, it has lost its power to torment me.

I’m guessing “how is that possible” might be what you are thinking.

I was not able to “see the more” in that moment.  Actually it was several years before I had the courage to allow my Heavenly Father to show me that moment from His perspective.  When I was ready to look, it was amazing what God showed me.  All that time I thought what I was feeling was my Dad’s pain at failing him when he needed me most.  Actually, what I was feeling was my own pain at not living up to my expectation of what I “should” be for my Dad and my family.

The truth was my Dad was no longer in any pain at all.  He actually was feeling the best he ever had felt.  Free from all pain.  I learned after the fact from my brother, that he had counted the cost before coming to the airport and still made the choice to meet me because he did not want me to be the only one that wasn’t with Dad at his transition.  Yes, my brother is my hero.

So after believing for so long that nothing could ever fix what had transpired, I allowed my Heavenly Father to lift my eyes from that bedroom to the horizon and discover the more He had for me.

Because it was my pain and no one else’s; it was also my choice to hold on to my pain and the torment attached to it or to exchange my mourning for His comfort (Matt 5:4).

I had judged myself and found myself lacking and unknowingly come into agreement with the lie that I deserved the pain and torment I was experiencing.  That is a lie straight from the pit of hell.  How do I know that?  Because that belief declares the stripes Jesus bore to pay the price for the chastisement of my peace as not enough. (Isaiah 53:5)

Freedom.  I was no longer trapped in that bedroom sitting alone by my Dad’s side, apologizing for how I had failed and telling him I would see him in heaven.  As I surrendered my pain in exchange for God’s comfort I suddenly saw a vision of that bedroom and behind me was my Dad, bathed in light, whole and healthy, rather than frail and consumed by cancer.  He was looking at me and the expression on his face was one of love and wishing I could know in that moment the truth that I know now.

Even in this moment, I am experiencing the truth of the more the horizon holds.

I started out by telling you it was 2 weeks ago I had the dream.  That same morning I was driving to another state to coordinate a conference.  I came out of the hills to the flatlands and my breath was taken away by the expanse of the horizon.  I made a voice memo to remind me “I can never get to the horizon.  It is so big and it just keeps moving out.  It’s a parable.  It’s the same as Your love.  I can see it and its expansiveness.  But I can never get to the edge of it.  It is always there.  It is always more than I get to; more than I can take in; more than I can traverse.  There is always more.”

Promptly after that conference I took ill with a nasty virus and have been ill ever since.  This morning was a wrestling match with Holy Spirit as I have been hearing the call to write since yesterday, but still felt so weak my response was I can’t, I have nothing to share.  When I woke early this morning I did my best to somehow fall back to sleep but I could not silence the call to go and listen to recent voice memos on my phone.  Really?  It can’t wait?

You are reading this post, so you know who won the wrestling match 🙂

I pressed the play button and was immediately reminded about the limitless more of God. Hope, that has been sorely lacking recently, returned.  I had been consumed with believing rest was the only thing I needed and was upset with being awakened so early.  My Heavenly Father knew what I needed even more was hope.

That’s exactly what was waiting for me.  It awaits you too.