Stardust

This one goes out to my dear one, Casey, who sits in a hospital room alone with her dad in Tucson, Arizona, far from her home and family in Houston.  Her dad had emergency surgery to remove a mass in his throat.  He's breathing through a tracheotomy and fighting pain.  He is sedated for the most part.  She sits there, and God knows I remember what it is like to sit there.  Hours and hours go by.

Our stories are very different.  But, a daddy is a daddy.

Her dad was a big executive at General Electric but things don't always go the way you plan and Casey ended up working her way through college and law school.  Her story is not mine to tell, but it hasn't been easy.

Sometimes it is difficult to see the original person God made.  Sometimes it takes some digging to get back to the ousia of the person.  That is the word Madeleine L'Engle always uses to describe the actual person, as they truly are created before the ravages of time and mental illness or substance abuse.

Tonight, I'm thinking of a man I grew up with in Eldridge, Iowa, Casey's dad, Chuck.  He was so cool.  They drank wine with dinner.  We drank milk with dinner.  He drove a GT.  We had a station wagon.  He was funny and kind and teased me, just like my own dad teased Casey. He listened to Willie Nelson's Stardust album with the lights down low.  They went on ski trip vacations. He and her mom were a sexy couple before I knew what a sexy couple was. He was larger than life.  His smile was a mile wide.  He would laugh. He was something else. He had a big pool table in the basement and blew up photos he had taken of Casey and her brother and framed them above the leather sofa.  He loved his family and his God.  Things don't always go the way you planned.

In my church confirmation class, I now believe that we wasted a lot of Saturday mornings debating who would and wouldn't get into Heaven.  What about babies that die before they are baptized?  What about teenagers who commit suicide?  What about people who suffer from mental illness?

Any God worth believing in has these things completely in His control.  I should have slept in.

God Promises us a right and beautiful mind. God promises us healing.

Some people just don't receive it until they meet Him face to face.