Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: MOURNING / MORNING (02/02/23)
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TITLE: Made it by His Grace | Previous Challenge Entry
By Shirlin Yesudhasan
02/08/23 -
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When she was in the hospital, I had taken my dad to the hospital to see her. He did not show any interest to come to see her. I couldn't understand if he had any love for her at all. He was a very difficult person to live with. When she died, I felt like my dad had no grief towards her loss. Even on the day of her funeral, he sat there with no emotions. Some told me that people mourn in their own ways. His lack of emotions piled up heaps of anger in my heart toward him. I could not mourn for my mom but could only thank God for relieving her from this miserable life.
We had arranged for some caretakers to be with my dad. I talked to him and the caretakers every day. I started to pray earnestly for my dad's heart to turn toward God. Every day I would hear so many complaints about him from the caretakers and I would feel so angry at him. As these problems were not settling down, I decided to wake up at 5 am every day just to pray for him. Those early morning prayers started to be a blessing in my life because I was waking up to pray for someone whom I actually hated.
One day I heard God say, “No one in history has ever changed because someone got mad at them. Love changes people but not anger. Show him love”. I understood that God was speaking to me. I immediately prayed, “Lord, please help me with this”. As hard as it is to believe, I ‘felt’ something heavy leave me. I started to talk kindly to my dad. No matter what complaints I heard about him, I decided not to show any anger anymore. One day I heard some terrible complaint about him and he said, “I thought you will yell at me now”. I said, “No, dad, Jesus has told me not to yell at you and to show you love. I will do only what Jesus tells me to do. So you can go about doing whatever you like, but I will not yell at you anymore”.
Over time, I heard lesser complaints about him. One day he thanked me for everything that I was doing to take care of him in spite of being thousands of miles away.
On the day of my mom’s anniversary, my dad who had not shed a drop of tear at her funeral broke down and cried. The next morning, I saw a dream. I kind of felt that something was going to happen to my dad. He was admitted to the hospital the very next day. One thing led to other and he never recovered back to consciousness after surgery. I traveled back to see him. By then he was on the ventilator. I read the Word for him every day and I prayed so that he could hear me. I talked to him every day to repent and get things right with God. I told him that my only desire was to be received by him when I went to heaven one day.
One morning, he went to be with the Lord. His face was so peaceful. God gave me the time and opportunity to reconcile with him, forgive him, and receive forgiveness from him, and told him that I loved him way more than I ever realized.
God showed me a glimpse of how He could love us, by helping me to love my dad in spite of all his shortcomings.
This is a true story.
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