The week didn't start out well. That Monday (May 25), Dad had a fever and was sweating, anxious, and disoriented. All of the excitement we'd experienced after Mom's phone call with him on Thursday had slowly vanished as each day afterward Dad seemed to slide a little farther downhill. I wished that Mom could be there to hold his hand and tell him he was OK. Deep inside I knew I should be grateful that God had already brought Dad through so much, but I just didn't understand why Dad was "gone" again.
The morning before, God had given me a song that I'd remembered from some time in childhood, "Set my spirit free that I might worship Thee..." The song is based on Psalm 142:7. "Set me free from my prison, that I may praise Your name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of Your goodness to me." It was exactly what I needed! Dad was trapped in a mental prison of sedation and its aftereffects; he needed God to free him from the confusion and help him to remember things clearly. So that became my prayer, that God would set Dad free from his prison of medication and morpheme.
It suddenly dawned on me that Dad’s fever and sweating sounded a lot like withdrawal symptoms, and when I googled the meds Dad had been given for sedation, I found that Dad could indeed be experiencing withdrawal symptoms. That somehow made me feel better; I just prayed that they wouldn’t last as long as the websites said they could!
Mom didn’t get to talk to Dad at all that day—he was asleep and the nurse said he really needed his rest.
But God continued to remind me of His power. In Isaiah 54 I read: "the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth." I wrote, "It amazes me that in spite of my frailty and sin, God still encourages me to come to Him with my needs and requests. He is God of all the earth, and yet He welcomes my prayers as I pour out my pain and fear and ask for Him to intervene on Mom and Dad's behalf. What a beautiful hope we have that not only do we serve the Almighty God, we also serve our Redeemer, who gave up His life for us and calls us each by name."
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