When my father was just about 80 years old, he got a fever.
It was over 105 degrees, which would have killed a less sturdy man but he was
struggling through it. His wife had him rushed to the hospital, but they
couldn’t break the fever and he was in a watch and wait state.
As the days stretched on, he was in and out of
consciousness. We would visit, wondering if we would be sitting next to a man
trying to wake and remain awake or a man drifting away in a deep, seemingly
endless sleep.
After a time, we were informed the fever had broken and he
was moved to a nursing facility. My sister Elaine and I went to visit him,
happy that we could finally have a conversation with him. What he told us still
affects me today.
He said that while he was laying in the hospital, a young
man in white came in to see him. He said that no one could see his visitor and
that he thought it may have been Jesus. My father was a man of words. He was a
voracious reader and writer, yet said the visit had been so wonderful and
beautiful that he could never put it down on paper. And then he said, “He asked
about you Maggie. He wanted to know how you were doing.”
At the time, I was not a believer, so brushed off what he
had said as the imagination of an old, sick man. I kidded with my sister that I
wasn’t sure which was more disconcerting – that Daddy had an imaginary friend,
or that the friend had asked about me.
Now I wonder.
In my life I have suffered many hardships. Some were before
my father’s illness, but many occurred since. I know that only God’s strength
enabled me to survive and thrive throughout, all the time maintaining a
semblance of normalcy to the outside world.
I think that my dad’s visitor wanted him to let me know that
God was concerned about me. In retrospect, and knowing that I think of this
often, I wonder if those words were to assure me that for the moment, it was ok
for me to keep trying on my own, but remind me that I should be checking in
periodically.
Today, I try to turn everything to God in prayer. I try to
remember to thank Him for the good days, and ask Him to help me make it through
the bad. I try to remember that asking for things is fine, but asking for grace
is better. I hope that through all my growing and praying, He doesn’t have to ask
about me anymore. Not because He knows it all, but because He has already heard
it from me.
