The following speech is what I read at my dad's service a couple days ago. After being asked by various people to send them a copy or post it somewhere, I decided this would be the easiest place to do so.
Today, we’re all here to celebrate
my dad’s life. A life that, for as long as I can remember, was full of
laughter, encouragement, and love. From my earliest memories to the last
moments, my dad never failed to make it clear that he loved life. When trying
to recall my first recollections of my dad, the money game came to mind. It was
practically a Saturday morning ritual. Between reading the newspaper in my
parent’s bed, my dad would playfully wrestle with my brother and me as we
attempted to grab a mere dollar bill from his hand. This memory, as well as
many others, is an example of how my dad made a point to make sure we knew that
life wasn’t all serious and that there was time to play….Not only that there
was a time to play, but also a time laugh. I’m not sure if we made it through a
single family dinner where he didn’t almost fall out of his chair from laughing
so hard at the joke he had yet to get out. My dad loved to play and loved to
laugh, but enjoyed his alone time on the back porch or watching TV in the
living room just as much. In the last few weeks, I had the opportunity to talk
with him about some of the things he thought about in his alone time. The
conversations were filled with encouragement and are some of the memories I
will cherish the most.
When I
found out three weeks ago that my dad had been diagnosed with cancer, I
instantly began praying. 1 Thessalonians 5:17, says to “pray without ceasing” and Matthew
7:7 says “Ask, and it will be given to
you”. Later on in Matthew 21:22 we are told “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”
So naturally I started praying, the Bible is filled with texts telling us to do
exactly that. . I began praying for his healing because I didn’t want it to
come to a point where we were no longer able to make memories together. I was asking
for God to heal my father so that God could really use this time to show just
how great His power is. I prayed that my dad’s body being fully healed would
remind people that “statistics and the assumed” doesn’t have power over God’s
strength. As the days went on, God began to remind me that He wasn’t a genie..
and that I wasn’t god.. and although I may think that I know what is best, He
knows better. Isaiah 55:8-9 says “For my
thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the
LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than
your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God is infinitely greater in
wisdom than we are and He holds all life in the palm of His hands. One morning
I read Ephesians 3:20 the verse reminded me that God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think..”
This began to give me peace that even if God didn’t answer my prayers the way I
wanted Him to, it wasn’t because He just didn’t feel like it or didn’t love me
or my family. Instead, God was answering prayers in ways beyond our
understanding. My peace about it all increased and I was really beginning to
wrap my head around how God was at work in all this.
Last
week, my dad had already spent a few days in the hospital and I could no longer
ignore the fact that he was drained. The lack of sleep, accumulation of medicines,
the fact that he had spent days in a hospital bed unable to move, and the
cancer itself was wearing him down. After being in the room for a while, I got up
and asked my dad if I could read him something. His response was, “of course.”
So, with his permission, I read him Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in
heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” I told him that I knew
his body was growing weary and beginning to shut down, but that in his
weariness God was calling my dad to come to Him. I reminded my dad that he
didn’t have to bear all this on his own and that he could go to the One whose yoke
is easy and whose burden is light as the scripture had said. I spoke to him
about the imperishable, immortal body that 1 Corinthians 15:53 speaks of. I reminded him that with this new body, his
lungs would never fail him, muscles wouldn’t get sore, his stomach wouldn’t get
hungry and his mouth would never thirst. Although the state he was in could
easily leave him hopeless, everything in me desired that he would gain hope.
Through the trials, I wanted him to trust Romans 8:18 that says, “The sufferings of this present time are
not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”. As I
finished talking to him, I was comforted by his response that he was indeed
excited to go home.
Less than twenty-four hours later
God called him home. Our family was blessed with the opportunity to spend the
last hours of my dad’s life thanking him for the man he was to us and telling
him how much we loved him. I couldn’t be more thankful that I had the chance to
sing and pray over my dad in that time. As I stood there brokenhearted that I
had to say goodbye, I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t excited for what was to
come for my dad. I thought about what his body was enduring and compared it to
what Revelation 21:4 says, that God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes,
and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor
pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” There is no such
thing as finding happiness in the fact that your dad is dying, but there is joy
to be found in the fact that there will be a day where the pain of life here on
Earth comes to an end. There is a day where there will be no more weeping,
hurt, darkness, or sickness.
Without
a doubt in my mind, I know that my dad, as well as all of us, wish that we could
have had more time with him. My dad was, unfortunately, only given a very short
time to fight, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a victory to celebrate.
Thousands of years ago, death lost its sting. Through Jesus being crucified,
taking on the sins of the world, being brutally killed, and defeating death
three days later, now as believers we can say “to die is gain”. My dad didn’t beat the cancer, but the true
battle has already been won and, because of that, he is able to spend eternity
celebrating the greatest victory of all time. For eternity, he will worship and
sing praises to the one true Physician, the one true Healer.
There
are going to be days when we don’t understand and we will get angry…days that
our hearts hurt and we just want to go out to lunch with him one more time… go
on one last camping trip… or laugh until we cry with him just one last time.
Those days will come and it will be okay to be sad, it will be okay to reminisce
on old times, and will be okay to give ourselves time to miss my dad, but I
hope that there will also be days when we will find ourselves seeking God in
this mess. God promises us in Jeremiah 29:13 that “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart”.
I pray that as we dwell on that promise, it will stir our affection for God and
that we will have the strength to lift our eyes to the things above.
Today is the celebration service
devoted to honoring my dad. As we celebrate the life that he lived, I ask you
to rejoice with me because he is already at the greatest celebration of all…in
heaven. What we know in part, he now knows in full. He can now say:
“O death, where is your sting? O
death, where is your victory?” 1 Corinthians 15:55
