Life; fragility

It was a piece of news I dread but always knew would happen at some point.

Apparently my dad had had some mild heart attacks in the past. I don't know if he knew and simply pretended, or if he was truly not aware. All this arose out of a health check up where the doctor refused to give him a clean bill of health, saying his ECG was abnormal. So now the situation is I think rather serious and he needs to see a heart specialist.

At which news my mum admitted that apparently recently my dad had been sprouting odd words re dying. I know he's been experiencing pain in the heart area for years but simply refuses to see the doctor. What's with the older generation and the absolutely illogical belief that ignorance is bliss? No! It's unfair that you subject yourself to this when you may well be cured if anything should be found at the early stages. At home, we are all so exasperated at the degree of his stubbornness. It is rather unfathomable.

I had never wanted to deal with the (obviously very real) possibility of any of my parents' passing on. It is a thought too painful to bear that the mere idea of it could send me into tears. I love my dad and my mum with a love that is sometimes so selfish I am ashamed - perhaps it could hardly be called 'love' in light of their selfless and amazingly sacrificial love for me. But I love them, to the best I can anyway. And the idea that they could be taken away from me just kills me.

My parents are unsaved. And much as I always liked to believe that for the past 10 years of my Christian life, that I truly (for many years really) believed and served and trusted in God with all my heart, my life and my soul, somewhere beneath, I doubted that as I know if my parents were to die unsaved, I would in all likelihood renounce God immediately. It was a thought I could not bear thinking and so one I had put off till today.

I am unable, I conclude, to accept death without salvation, not when you are talking about my loved ones. I know I am silly and my faith is weak. But in all my "humanness" and my inability to comprehend His ways, I refuse and I reject that. I cannot believe that God, being love personified, could do something so cruel. I know, His ways are higher than my ways. I don't deny that. But like I said, in all my humanness, I could not, and would not, accept that.

Things like these make you think of life and how fragile it really is. How the small things that we obsess about are so minute, really, in the final analysis. I sometimes wonder why He puts up with us, in all our pathetic wretchedness.

claire