Don't Forget About Me

Luke 15:20: And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him

My dad is just a blur in my memory. I can barely remember visits with him as a child and that suited me just fine. My mama  was the only father and mother that I knew. After I married and had children, they had questions about their grandfather but there wasn't much that I could tell them about him, because there was not much that I knew or cared to have known about him. I did take them to meet him once and that placated them for a while, but a few months ago I got a message that I had been dreading and it said "your daddy wants to see you".

I avoided the meeting like the plague. I was tempted to just meet him and get it over with, but every time the thought came to my mind, I would have memories of my mama going to clean houses in the snow to put food on the table and I would become filled with guilt of betraying her and she was no longer alive for me to ask her how she felt about me meeting him.

My mama took care of both of her parents until they died and I made a vow that I would honor my mother just as I was commanded by the Lord to do in Exodus 20:12. For me to honor her was not just to take care of her but to respect her when she was alive and to respect her in her death also.  So for me the best thing to do was to forget about the whole situation of meeting this man. As you can see to even say the name dad is foreign to me. I have to be honest and say that even to say the word as it relates to him causes me to have heart palpitations.

But I could not get the thought of him out of my mind. I would wake up in the mornings thinking about him. I would lay down at night thinking about him and then I realized that it was not an issue of me betraying my mama but it was the issue of would I obey my Heavenly Father, whom I said that  I love above all else. I made up my mind quite quickly that I would obey God.

I asked my daughter and granddaughter would they go with me to me him and of course they said yes. I told him that we would come to his house this past Saturday at 4:00 pm. As soon as we arrived at the door, we could hear the excitement in his voice. He greeted my granddaughter first, my daughter hugged him and I stood there almost paralyzed without knowing how to greet him and finally he extended his hand and I shook it.

We stayed for a while and we talked about many things. Finally the time came for us to leave and out no where I asked him what was his plans for Christmas and he said that he did not have any and I asked him if he wanted to spend Christmas day with us and he said that he would love to. So we will be having a new member of the family with us on Christmas day.

As we were leaving I did follow my daughter's lead and hug him before we left, and as we were leaving he said the strangest thing. He said "don't y'all forget about me". That was very strange because he was the one who seemed to have forgotten about me all of those years ago when I was a child. That was the reason that my heart grew cold toward him, because he forgot about me when he stopped coming around.

But something wonderful happened for me in spite of him not coming around. I gained a Heavenly Father, who taught me how to be a daughter. The Lord has shown me that I can still honor this man even though he was not a daddy to me. I won't forget about him, because the Lord took me in and became that Daddy that I never knew and he taught me how to be a daughter. I am able to show him unconditional love, by being a godly daughter who can honor him because my Father took His word and applied it to my life and now I am ready to honor my prodigal father. 

I made a promise to God that with His help that I will honor my earthly dad until the day I die. I thank God that He did not forget about me. The only thing that I want from my earthly dad is for him to come to know my Abba.

Good Friday or Black Friday

I've heard so many tragic stories about people who were assaulted on Black Friday. A father and his sixteen year old pregnant daughter assaulted an employee at Walmart because he could not give them  the product that they wanted. A father asked the customer behind him to hold his baby and when she did he beat the customer ahead of him because he was tired of hearing him talk. This really does sound like a "dark day" and a lot of people got injured because of it. Was it worth it?

 Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, this is when retailers offer great sales to start the Christmas Holiday. It is ironic that some people would harm others when they go out and shop for Christmas, which is the day that is set aside to celebrated the birth of the promised Messiah.  I'm sure if we could ask Jesus what He thinks about the way we prepare for His birthday, He would say, "no thank you".

We anticipate Black Friday all year. I ask again, is it worth it? I don't think that it is worth it, but there was a day that was worth it all. The only person that was assaulted was Jesus and He was assaulted for us. This day is called Good Friday. On Good Friday if you look around churches, you would not find a fourth of the people sitting in pews that was out on Black Friday. It is a shame and a disgrace to God that He would give up His only Son for us and we still reject Him. We claim that on Black Friday we are preparing to celebrate Jesus' birth, but what we are worshipping is an idol, because we have made Jesus in our image and we are guilty of idolatry (Exodus:32).

Do you not know that the retailers will get back double fold what you paid for those marked down items on Black Friday, but what did God get back when He sacrificed His only begotten Son? He received wretches that was worthy of death. This does not seem fair. Will you FOREVER  seek things that will only bring you temporary happiness, when God is offering you "the water that will become in you a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John:4:14). My heart longs for you to receive this gift. This is my only reason for starting this blog and now let examine the two Fridays.

It appeared to be a Black Friday on what we now call Good Friday,because with Jesus dead it was impossible for the long awaited promise of God to be fulfilled, then came Resurrection Day (John 20: 1-8).  You see on every Black Friday that we have had, it led to some kind of tragedy, but Good Friday lead up to Victory, because the Lord defeated sin and death, and that Black Friday over two thousand years ago gave us hope.

There is a Black Friday that comes once a year and people fight to get into the stores for the sales and there is a Good Friday that comes once a year and it leads up to Resurrection Day, no one has to fight to enter into God's Kingdom, because it is freely offered. Jesus said "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Matthew 11:15). Will you please listen?