April, 2006 Newsletter

Go Back

I didn’t know it would be this way. On the one hand we knew that my father’s days were numbered, but on the other hand we did not expect him to pass away so soon and so suddenly. It seemed like his health was improving so we were caught off guard when he passed away. Yet I thank God for allowing my father to live long enough so that our whole family could be there by his side at the end. God also gave us signs along the way to let us know that we were not alone in the hospital room, but that he was present.

Even though I know that my father became a believer in Jesus some years ago and that I had the privilege of baptizing him before his dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson disease began to take hold of him, I still miss my dad. I cannot explain it, but from time to time I sense a profound loss that I am unable to shake. The fact that my dad is with the Lord does not remove this feeling. For anyone that has lost a loved one, I think you know what I mean. You don’t “just get over it”; you have to learn to live with it and somehow grow from it.

As I was reflecting on my dad one day, a couple of thoughts went through my mind. Firstly, I started thinking about how difficult it must be to lose a spouse or a child. If I have this sense of profound loss with my father, I was imagining that the sense of loss must be greater with a spouse or a child. Secondly, as I was reading the Bible and praying with my dad over the last eight hours of his life, the one thing I could not do was to stop the hand of death. Obviously, that power is not within my grasp.

Then it hit me. God the Father is the one person who could have stopped the death of his own Son, but he didn’t. I began to wonder if God the Father allowed himself to feel a sense of profound loss because of his great desire to restore his relationship with humanity. Then a verse that I kept reading to my dad during his last hours hit me. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NLT).

Wow, does God love us that much? He would suffer the loss of his own Son so that he can have a relationship with us. As I am dealing with the loss of my earthly father, I am beginning to better understand the magnitude of my heavenly Father’s love for us. It amazes me that God the Father didn’t stop the death of his Son because had I had that power in my grasp, I might well have saved my dad. I don’t necessarily like the feeling of loss that comes over me from time to time, yet I know that this sensation of loss tells me that I loved my earthly dad dearly and miss him greatly. And what makes living with this profound sense of loss bearable is that I know my God somehow understands and was willing to suffer the loss of his own Son to bring me back into a relationship with him.

—-Pastor Lester Yamashita

Go Back