We are all worth the search. We are all worth finding. The God we pray to wants us to know that no matter how far we have roamed, no matter how bad we have been, no matter what we have done, if we repent and promise to change our lives, then we will be found, we will be forgiven.But guess what? Being found doesn't just happen. Sometimes Christ needs to work through us to bring others back to his flock.
In my ministry as a hospital chaplain, I remember a nurse sharing a story about a patient who had been admitted with a heart attack, and he had seemed restless and anxious all evening. After checking his chart, she asked how he was feeling. With tears in his eyes, he asked her if she would call his daughter and tell her of his heart attack. She was the only family he had left, and he seemed very anxious that she know of his condition. The nurse promised to call right away.
When the nurse reached the patient’s daughter with news of her father's heart attack, she was startled by the woman's reaction. The woman screamed, "No!" She blurted out that she and her father hadn't communicated in years. He had abandoned the family when she was a child and raised by her mother. All this time, she had struggled with forgiveness.
The nurse began to pray. If only God would allow this estranged father and his daughter to reconcile! She felt an urgent need to return to his room and found him unconscious, suffering from another heart attack. She performed CPR on his lifeless form, she sent up a desperate prayer to God that he wouldn't die before he found peace with his daughter. But no amount of medical attention would re-start his heart. He was dead.
In the hallway of the hospital, the nurse saw a young woman with shock and grief on her face. It was the daughter. The nurse tried to comfort her. "I never hated him, you know. I loved him," the young woman said. The daughter wanted to see her father. As the daughter leaned over the body of her dead father and cried, the nurse glanced around the room. She picked up a piece of paper and glanced at the name on top, and handed it to the daughter. The young woman read it aloud: "My dearest, I pray you will forgive me. I know that you love me. I love you too. Daddy." Where grief and shock had contorted the daughter’s features and filled her eyes, now there was only peace. The nurse slipped out of the room and headed to a telephone, to call her own father.
We need to ask ourselves "who needs forgiveness in our own lives"? How much anger may be consuming our lives, the very same anger which once consumed the life of the daughter? We need to use this time to forgive our friends, our family, our neighbors, and maybe even ourselves. Christ needs us to find the lost and bring them back. Only then will there be great rejoicing in heaven.
The Lord prays for us as we reflect: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we may never doubt Your love nor take for granted the mercy You have shown to us. Fill us with your transforming love that we may be merciful as you are merciful.
