FollowBy Dan Amos
The Sunday after Easter, my family and friends of my mom and dad gathered for a memorial for my dad. Mom has a certificate that says he died two weeks earlier, but we know that he was healed on that day and is more alive than ever. But this was not a certain conclusion – it was a nail-biter up until the end. I thought about this again this last Sunday when Martin spoke on David’s struggle in Psalm 139.
Dad was what the world would call a good man. Generations of kids remember him as the man who would make time for them and play with them, often when their own dads were gone or too busy. He retired from the Navy after 20 years serving on ships including the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. He served on the ground in Vietnam, and those memories haunted him until Alzheimer’s took all of his memories away.
The father I knew as a child took me to church. I even found a picture of him sitting at home reading his Bible. Dad was not an “up front” kind of person who was comfortable speaking in public, but I have a distinct memory of him standing in church at a Sunday evening service and testifying about what God was doing in his life. I don’t remember the content, but the image is clear. I also remember how we would mercilessly tease him about his off-key singing voice that I heard in church. I would love to hear that voice again!
However, he was haunted by secrets. No one knows what they were, but he occasionally would give us a glimpse by saying they were too awful to be forgiven. He ran from God and tried to hide. For most of his adult life he let the guilt of something keep him from knowing the peace of God’s forgiveness. This caused in me uncertainty – not about whether God would reject me, but about whether I could reject Him. I was somewhere between the Arminian and Calvinist positions and I was certain Dad needed to know where he stood. But he would not talk to us about it.
As awful as Alzheimer’s is, with the mental, emotional and physical destruction it causes, we have to see it as a blessing for my dad. The disease broke down his resistance until someone (who I believe was led by the Spirit) challenged him to make a conscious decision about his standing with God. Dad followed that up the next Sunday by responding to an altar call, and finally found the forgiveness that had always been waiting for him. Not long after, he made a public declaration of his faith while being baptized.
David sinned greatly, but he recognized he could not run from his sin. He repented. He was a man after God’s own heart because he chose to repent and receive forgiveness. I have the hope we get through the Gospel that my dad is in heaven with Jesus. Because he bowed his knee in this life, he was given new life. It didn’t have to end this way. He could have kept running, and the outcome would have been unthinkable. I wish he had chosen sooner – 40 years sooner – but the dad I loved did finally choose, and it is well.
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