Thanksgiving Journal: Thank You for Being the Father Who Runs To Us

 Nine years ago today my Father passed away.  The death certificate states fatal myocardial infarction. I call it a fatal broken heart. For many years he had been suffering the anguish and sorrow caused by my brother's decision to stop considering himself part of the family, and severing ties with all of us, including our Dad...our Dad who loved my brother more than he loved himself.

Up until the last moments before his passing, my Father, even though bed-ridden in a hospital room, spent his last breaths saying he wanted to be taken to his beloved son...or hoping he would show up.  My brother never came to see him in life.  As fate would have it, he decided to finally make the 4-hour trip to visit our Dad two hours too late.  But I know, had my Father gotten a glimpse of my brother coming home, he had ran to meet him...he would have gotten out of bed and just ran with his arms open wide to embrace him and welcome him back...never even remembering a second of the long years he spent in pain due to his absence and rejection. 

My Father's story makes me think of how grateful I am to have a Heavenly Father who lavishes a love so extravagant on His children that He runs to us the second He sees us turning back on our sinful ways...He runs back and welcomes us home...not as slaves, but as His rightful children and heirs.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15: 20

My brother never experienced the peace of the certainty that our Father would have forgiven him anything and just surrounded him with his overflowing love, restoring him to his place as his beloved first-born child...but as children of God...we don't have to wonder.  We know.

My Dad's passing left a terrible hole in my heart and the unresolved issues with my brother have shaken my very core.  But, I give thanks to Our Lord, today and every day, for reminding me of the compassion, patience, forgiveness and enduring love we find in His Kingdom.  I give thanks that even when we are still "a long way off," Our Father runs to us and throws His arms around us and welcomes us home.  In Jesus' Precious Name.  Amen!