Does Anyone Have A Shovel I Can Borrow?

I need to dig a hole. I need to dig a hole under the ground and then I need to crawl inside it to pray. There, I will weep and sob and beg as I pray for my father's salvation because prostrate on the earth's surface just doesn't express it well enough.

Today is my dad's birthday.

"I'm 7 now," Dumpling tells him on the phone after a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday, "how old are you?"

There's a pause and then an incredulous grin, "Sixty-two ?!!" (Later, when it's her big sister's turn with the receiver, she'll tell me, "He's older than you !") *chuckle* I sure hope so.

62 years of life. And 2/3rds of it have been spent openly angry at the Lord--or His people--over I'm not sure what. Was he exasperated to wrath living the life of a pastor's son? Was he infuriated by the hypocrisy that is so pervasive amongst the tares of the Church? Was he undone or unwilling to confront and confess his own inherent sinfulness?

Was it something his brother did?

Or maybe it was his time spent as a police officer in Ohio and Boston. Surely he saw the worst that mankind has to offer while in uniform; did his theology leave him unprepared? Or was it the trama of taking another man's life the time he shot to kill the suspect whose gun jammed in a back alley in Dayton? I was weeks old when they awarded him a medal and put him on the news.

I don't know why my dad is so mad. But the Lord knows.

And the Lord knows that my dad still bears a hint of the image of God whom He was made to glorify. He's a good man in so many ways. Biblical ways. God saw the time, when as a very young police officer, Dad gave cash out of his own pocket to a lonely widow who had been robbed of her government-assistance check. God also saw Dad not cash the check that was made in repayment. To this day, he hangs a small frame containing that check and the message to Remember wherever he does his work.

God saw Dad set aside his own desires to keep the commitment he had made to being a husband, a father and a provider when the road was not always pleasant, smooth or straight.

God saw Dad honor his own father before his death by sitting down to watch an evangelistic video--even though I know he'd rather have been sticking needles in his eyes.

God saw Dad buy his son-in-law his first desktop publishing computer to start a business back in the day, and God saw Dad gift his daughter a video camera with the promise of his first grandchild.

God saw Dad pay for the overhaul of an air conditioner for his niece, her young husband the pastor, and their full and growing quiver of children when the one in their conversion van failed in the heat of summer and they needed to get back to California from Texas, by way of the desert southwest.

God saw Dad thoughtfully and generously pay for train tickets for all so that he could share the milestone with his 6-year-old grandchild, Fifi.

God saw Dad make a no-interest loan on a larger, safer car for his own progeny--and He didn't miss it when Dad forgave the debt halfway through the repayment period.

And God knows that most of this information came my way through another person because Dad doesn't brag.

But when God looks at this man: this generous, compassionate, much-loved man--my dad--He sees someone unfit for Heaven. He, like the rest of us, is stained with sin.

But he simply won't come to the fountain to be washed in the blood of the Lamb.

And he won't let me talk to him about it.

He keeps us at arms length because He doesn't want to see the witness. He has no interest in hearing my testimony. His disgust with Christianity is greater than his interest in his daughter.

And it breaks. our. hearts. Jesus' and mine.