Carried by Others
These last three years have been the most difficult years of my life as I experienced two deaths in my family. However difficult it was though, I felt loved and cared for by people in this community. As I shared my father’s physical ailments and emotional pains from Parkinson’s disease and cancer, the brothers and sisters at this church committed to carrying my father in prayer. For one whole year, they made weekly efforts to visit my family and encourage my father with their prayers. People came sharing God’s Word, singing hymns, bringing fruit, and even decorating my father’s hospital room with Christmas lights during Christmas. Others called, emailed me with words of encouragement, and offered to help in any way they could. I felt as if my family became other people’s family as they adopted my family into their prayers and concern. One sister told me that next to her own family, my family was next in line in her prayers. This really touched me as I saw how God was using so many people to intercede for my family. I felt undeserved to be a recipient of so many prayers from brothers and sisters that I have never personally met.
Their commitment of love for my family is another manifestation of God's grace and goodness in my life. I am so privileged and thankful that I could attest to God’s faithfulness through my father's salvation and passing. This experience has given me a better understanding of God’s love and what it means to take on each other’s burdens. Not only was my father carried, but I was also carried through this difficult time and for this, I am so grateful.