ABBA FATHER

(A New Understanding)

It was a beautiful Saturday. I was in the bedroom ... at rest...but not asleep.

The phone rang and my wife's footsteps told me to keep resting, she would answer it.

Looking back on that experience now, I think I would have chosen to answer the phone. And this is the way I should have answered it:

"Hello? This is somebody else.'

I know ... I know. That really sounds strange. But how often have we heard It said, "But, these things always happen to somebody else. I never dreamed it would happen to me. Well, this was one of those "somebody else" calls. It was a call to tell us that our 17 yr. old son was at the bottom of the dam and no one could find his body.

I never did want to be "somebody else", but we didn't have any choice in the matter. Life  is an ongoing drama and we were next In line to play that role. And play it we must ... without any clues to memorize or any cues to tell us what to do next. Everything had to be Straight from the hip ... gut level reactions'...with no advance warnings or practice sessions to warm up with.

My wife and I both knelt by the bed and began to pray. We figured that God could get there quicker than we could and He was In a better position to do something about the situation. But, the strangest thing happened while I was praying. I took a sudden involuntary gasp ... like a dying person would. And with that gasp came a realization. It was already all over. He was dead and our praying wasn't going to change a thing.

My wife heard that funny gasp and had the same feeling. We got off our knees and prepared to drive 8 miles to the little city park where the dam was. Since then, I've read books and watched videos about grief, dying and traumatic situations.

Someone verbalized the basic 5 stages of grief. They are:

DENIAL
BARGAINING
ANGER
GRIEVING
ACCEPTANCE

Well, when they yanked the coat tails of my mind and said, "The curtain’s going up and you have to play the role of somebody else". I wasn't prepared with all that knowledge. I had a mother and father and ten brothers and sisters ... all living. Death had never visited us in such a close relationship before. I had never had an occasion to buy books on how to accept death graciously. Babies don't buy books on "How to be babies" before they are born. What happens...happens.

What I'm trying to say is this: No one told me how long the 'denial' was to take place. So, while we drove the four miles of dirt road down to the highway ... I kept thinking that THIS COULDN'T BE HAPPENING TO US.

No way. We were used to miracles in our family. I almost died of diphtheria when I was a baby...but prayer saved me. I had polio when I was nine and lay paralyzed for months...but prayer made me walk again. My wife and 3 children had been caught up in a flash flood at night and the car miraculously caught on the next bridge downstream. My parents tell of how their big house in Hawaii was swept out to sea by a tidal wave, two weeks after they had moved. They tell of Japanese bombers bombing the city they were in...after God told them to leave the city.

It would take a full length book just to describe half of the miracles that our corporate family has experienced. I think I had pretty good reasons to DENY the finality of this situation. Well, we got to the highway and turned right. We drove maybe a hundred yards or so, before the BARGAINING BEGAN. I remember the BIG TREE on the right, when I said, "GOD ... if you will save our son ... I WILL PREACH AND PRAY TILL JESUS COMES"

The reason for that statement was: I had struggled with the call of God on my life for many years. I had attempted to fulfill it and failed. I had wandered as a 'dry land Jonah' for years. I would quit jobs because I felt that I should be preaching. But, I felt unworthy and I didn't know how to get started, so I would get another job and run some more.

You see, I knew it was over. My son was gone. I couldn't deny it. And death has a way of making life meaningless. I didn't have to wait several days before knowing that the 'trivial things' of life could become unbearable without our son around. Part of our purpose for living was gone with him. I knew that and didn't want to live it out ... so I bargained!

Somewhere between the BIG TREE and the "Y" my bargaining was over. It had to be less than two minutes. The "Y" is where the road forked, taking us into town. By the time we got there it was all over. I said, "God. Whether John Mark lives or dies I will preach and pray till Jesus comes." That was my way of saying, "I will never again work at a secular job. I will devote myself 'full time' to your service." I really don't remember what else I thought for the remaining 3 miles to and through Utopia to the city park.

But, I do remember the congregation that met us there. Utopia is home to only three or four hundred people. But a school reunion had brought about 200 people to the park that day. They were eyewitnesses and spectators to all that would take place during the next two hours.

When I saw all those people, I guess I missed my cue to be 'ANGRY' or maybe that wasn't the time for it. I would have to come pick up that 'cue card' later. Seeing all those people lined up on the bank of the river did something to me. I let my wife out of the car and told her I had to go pray. She was used to that. She said, "O.K." and I drove out under a tree and laid down in the front seat. That's when the sobs began to shake my body. I just let them roll over me in waves.

I knew I didn't want to go through with this. There was still a little bit of bargaining desire in me...but, I knew, somehow I knew!

This was my Gethsemane. But, it wasn't my death I had to accept ... it was the death of another. But, the pain of it all would still be mine. Jesus was in the garden - with strong crying and tears - and I was on the front seat of my car in the park - with the same kind of agony. People were walking by within twenty feet of the car. But, I didn't care. I had to finish out this part of my experience before I could go through with the rest of it.

I don't know how long It was ... but I didn't stop until the sobbing naturally subsided and the peace entered my soul. I dried my eyes ... sat up and went to take my place among the mourners. I looked for the familiar figure of my 'country girl' wife and went and stood by her side. Without saying a word, we both looked out at the angry flood waters surging over the dam. The flood had subsided quite a bit from its full fury. On the day of the big flood my wife and I had both watched a huge tree being taken under like a matchstick. Evidently it was pulled to the bottom where we couldn't see it for some time. Then It would suddenly shoot out of the water, only to be taken right back down again by the undertow and the waterfall. There it rotated hour after hour in a prison cycle of captivity.

Our son had gone swimming on the wrong day. A weakened flood is still a flood. It is assumed that he tried to get behind the waterfall to walk on the ledge that many young people had walked on during the normal river flow. But, where was his body? Divers had to come from 50 miles away to search for John's body. And during the next hour or two, I encountered a world of experience and understanding in many areas of life. It was like a 'teaching session' with THE MASTER TEACHER doing the tutoring. But, those things I must save for another time. I must zero In on the topic for this particular message I have to share. I told you this happened on a Saturday didn't I?

Well, while we were waiting... I had to think of where and when we would have the funeral. And then it dawned on me, this was Saturday, June 20th, 1981. And June 21st. of that Year happened to be "FATHER'S DAY"!

I'll never forget "shaking my head on the inside" and saying to myself, "WHAT A FATHER'S DAY PRESENT! What a Father's Day present .

Words can never describe the feeling. I knew that all Utopia would be celebrating Father’s Day in their separate churches the next morning. I knew that everyone would also be thinking of me. I knew the Pastors would have to make the announcement and ask prayer for the family. I knew some people would be thinking, "Man, what a raw deal."

But, I knew that "Mother’s Day" from now on would also be a time of memories. The sweet had now turned to bittersweet. Life would never be the same. I had taken a year of ‘drama’ in Junior College. I had always seen those two little masks that represent the theatrical world. But to see is not to understand. Yes, I had seen, but now I understood. I understood 'the theatre of life’. We were on stage" watching while the spectators wept for us. And they were. We went from one to the other...hugging and comforting them. I’m serious. God gave my wife and I a supernatural acceptance which helped us encourage others who were taking it harder than we were at the time. Some of our response could naturally be attributed to shock but the rest had to be attributed to 'grace’.

We missed church on Father's Day. No sense making it harder on ourselves. Instead, we drove the 30 miles to a funeral home where we looked at caskets and made ‘unprepared for’ decisions.

I leave a gap in my story now ... for I cannot tell you about the many things I learned in the next few days and weeks ... and still tell you about Abba Father.

You see, I did not go back on my promise to God. I left the secular world. But ...I didn't know how to fulfill the preaching part of my promise. So I prayed and waited, prayed and waited, prayed and waited. Finally, someone from a little Southern Baptist Church called and asked if I would speak on a Sunday morning. They didn't have a pastor, so I consented. They asked me back again and again and again. I ended up staying there two. The most crucial Sunday in those two years happened to be June 20th 1982. The anniversary of our son's death was exactly on Father's Day that year ... and I had to preach a Father's Day message.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

I thought of all my feelings and learning and experiences during the past year. I remembered a story that I had heard.

"A man's son had been killed by a train. As that bitter father stood at the sight, someone heard him say, "WHERE WAS GOD WHEN MY SON DIED? " And the soft reply was, "The same place He was when His son died.'

I don't know where I read that, but it had comforted me during that year. And I knew I would have to use my own experience as the focal point of my sermon. But how would I get my message across? In the process of study, I looked up the Hebrew word for FATHER. Using the Strong's Concordance, the word for Father was the very.first word in that Hebrew dictionary. That word was AB. I immediately remembered the New Testament scripture which used the phrase "ABBA FATHER"

I had learned my A B C's in school. But, I had just picked up "God's Primer" on the A B C's of life. There it was AB - Father. Why shouldn't it be first in line. Father's the first, the originators and Father God was the first originator of time. A couple words below spoke of "green - greenness, plant-fruit"  And what is more fruitful than the greening of Fatherhood ... and the bearing of sons?"

Besides, while I was at the dam...five words kept ringing in my mind over and over again,"A planting of The Lord. A planting of The Lord". That's a whole story in itself ... but that word "plant" brought all of that back to mind.

But word number six on that list was ABAD ... which meant..."to wander away; i.e. to lose oneself; by implication, to perish, (cause to destroy). Then all the words down to number 13 had to do with perishing and destruction, Hades and something lost.

I thought of Father God and the lost state of humanity; and the destruction of death and dying that come upon the whole world in every generation. I thought of our being 'away from God' and alienated from a close relationship with Him.

Tears were already forming in my eyes when I read word 14 - Abah; a primitive root word meaning "TO BREATHE AFTER". Word 15 was like unto It - Abeh - meaning longing and desire.

And the next two words followed the same theme; 'a bending towards' 'desiring' 'wanting' and 'sorrowing'.

It was then that I knew that God was the first one to ever feel the intense yearning of sorrow and grief. I remembered Jesus saying, "When you have seen me...you have seen the Father." And it was written of the Christ, "He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."

I had read those scriptures many, many times and had never understood.

I wept unashamedly. The Father and I became one on that day. I wept for Him. He wept for me. Together we yearned for those who were away from us. I discovered something about grief which very few people know. Many times it is nothing more than the pain and agony of 'UNREQUITED LOVE' A girl can love a boy who never even looks her way. She understands the pain and grief of an unrequited love. Parents still love their children who have died ... but they get no return ... for the child is gone. They must love. They were created to love. And the object of their love is gone. Oh, the yearning, the longing after, the desire, the bending toward ... and yet, the inability to reach and provoke a response. I read of one woman who tiptoed into her son’s bedroom at night and kissed him while he was asleep. The reason? She said it was because "He was shutting her out of his life during the day and the only time she could get close to him was when he was asleep."

She loved deeply but the love was not returned. She grieved. She sorrowed as many other parents have over children who still live. Wives have grieved seriously on the inside while their husbands lie snoring next to them. Why? Because the husbands never seem to return the love that they try to give.

I have even discovered that many divorced people have gone through the five stages of grief. And their whole life has been affected just as much as if a death had occurred in the family. I knew then that I had a life calling:It was to comfort those who sorrow because of death and it was to help wayward people to become ‘reconciled with God - their Father'.I knew that a ministry of reconciliation would also cause me to be a peacemaker in marriages and in church splits and in any area of life where love relationships have been strained or broken.

My tears splotched the pages of Strong's Concordance while Father-God and I had our Passover cry. In a thousand-million years I would have never dreamed what would happen next. After I had cried and prayed for some time...l was urged to "LOOK AGAIN" at the Hebrew dictionary. And there It was right in front of me ... Christmas and Easter all wrapped up in another Hebrew word. It was word 18 on the list. And it meant, a manger - or stall. a crib.

THE BIRTH OF CHRIST WAS FATHER GOD RUNNING AFTER HIS CREATION SAYING, "COME BACK. I MISS YOU. I LOVE YOU. I FORGIVE YOU. PLEASE COME BACK!

The agony of death is swallowed up in "NEW BIRTH".

Adam and Eve were the first parents to grieve and sorrow in death ... but God did not leave them to mourn over Abel's death and Cain's departure from home. Oh, no. He gave them a crib ... a new birth ... another boy ... a new lease on life.

I knew we could never have another child. But, I knew God was not going to leave us in the gloom and sorrow of death. He was promising us "LIFE AFTER DEATH"! He was promising us A NEW DAY ... A NEW HOPE ... A NEW FAITH!

I knew that I had been made and created to love. I knew I couldn't dam up that reservoir of love just because my son could not be a visible recipient of it. Bitterness is the dam that dries up the soul. I knew I had to keep loving my son as I Loved God ... without seeing Him.

But, I knew also that it would be imperative to keep that love flowing by channeling it toward our one remaining son and daughter. I knew that I would also have to include many others in this river of life-giving water that was beginning to surge through my being. Through this 'death experience' I had experienced a "planting of the Lord".