In God's Hands

In God's Hands

My parents have been apart for many years and have lived a thousand miles apart for most of that time.

Today I called her.

Dad’s in the midst of a medical crisis and, while it might seem a bit strange to call her about him, I just wanted my mom.

And so I called her.

When I explained the situation as best I could, given that I’m getting updates second or third hand, she told me that he’s been on her mind lately too.

What with one thing and another we his daughters may well have to make a decision none of us wants to have to make.

Knowing this, and the anguish that goes along with it, she told me something that brought tears rising in my eyes, coursing my face, and falling.

She said, ‘Your dad is in God’s hands. God will take him when it’s time, in His own time and in His own way. Trust Him.’

Into the rising, coursing, falling tears went the anxiety, the stress, and the brutality of self-questioning.

As they dropped away from me, so too did the burden they carried within them.

It’s God’s call, not ours to make, His will that matters, not ours.

As we hung up, she to answer a call from one of my sisters, I realized something more.

A thousand miles apart, a lifetime of being apart, has not changed one elemental thing about these two people, my parents.

The faith they share is the same faith, in the same God.

Diametrically opposed they may have been for the most part, and with likewise differing expressions of that faith … yet … yet … it is, in the final analysis, their faith that has been their most vital gift to me.

Choosing to follow my mother’s expression of that faith, I found myself on a path taken long ago by not only her ancestors but those of my father. His personal expression diverged from that path but his faith did not.

And so the faith endures.

It is being carried on.

The tears continue to rise, to course, to fall.

Within each is a little burden of doubt and fear, all dropping one  by one by one away from me.