On Being Blessed
I experienced growth in my life through different situations, which involved me either seeing myself in truth, learning how to love and be loved, and learning of how God has loved so faithfully. Three particular experiences involved taking care of my father, seeing the kind of care and love my leaders have for me, and through caring for students.
I experienced a deeper understanding of God’s love through my father’s Parkinson’s disease and cancer. I learned how God is able to turn situations that seem bleak and despairing into one of hope and renewal. I use to think that God’s blessings took the form of good things, like a birth of a child, or marriage, or getting a job. I never would have thought that God could turn disease and cancer into a blessing, but that is exactly what God did through my father’s illness.
In my sophomore year in college, my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I didn’t know this disease would be one of such slow torture, until the effects manifested itself through the deterioration of my father’s health. My father became very much dependent on my family to live day to day. He not only developed difficulty in walking, but needed help with his daily physical needs. It got the point where he would take 2 hours to eat a bowl of oatmeal and even then, he had to resist choking with each spoonful of food. It was difficult to see his transformation of being a prisoner in his own body. He began to lose ability to communicate. His words were reduced to slurs and then to whispers. In the end his communication was reduced to blinking his eyes twice for “yes” and once for “no.” The hardest blow for my family was when we found out that he had esophageal cancer. Truthfully there were times, I found myself crying out to God that it was too much for all of us to take. It was really difficult to see my dad in such a helpless state. I felt so unable and saddened by the truth that I could not do anything to make him better. It was through this time, that God taught me how He could bring to life what I had deemed as hopeless.
The first miracle was through my dad’s salvation decision. I started to see that God used the state of his health to create a humble openness to Jesus. The change in my father’s heart gave me reassurance that God was real and actively working in his heart. I remember sharing with my dad that many of my friends from Davis, Berkeley, and San Francisco church were praying for him. And in response he called me to his side, and for the first time in my whole life, he said “thank you” to me. At that point in my junior year college, I began to see God soften his heart. Before he was ambivalent towards the Gospel and many times ridiculed me for attending church, but now he not only wanted to read the Bible, but also wanted to pray. After the confirmation of my father’s salvation when I moved back to San Francisco, I saw how God minister and comforted through each step level of his deterioration. Though there was pain, frustration, and heartache, my dad was assured that nothing could separate him from the love of God.
I also gained a better sense of God’s love through dependence on others. When I first shared my father’s illness with the brothers and sisters in Davis, they committed to carrying him through prayer. Throughout the course of that year, my father was added to the church’s prayer list and people from Davis, Berkeley, and San Francisco committed to pray for him. I use to think that my family situation was a private matter that I bore on my own, but through the commitment of brothers and sisters at this church, I began to experience the blessing of being carried by others. When I moved back to San Francisco to care for my father, the sisters in San Francisco took it upon themselves to set up weekly rotations to visit my father. So many people visited bringing joy, sharing God’s Words, and praying with my father. Through the care of the brother and sisters, God not only met my family at our lowest point, but also helped us to experience a tangible manifestation of God’s love. This body of Christ adopted on my family as their own family and carried them in prayer, and for this I am so indebted.
Lastly, through caring for my father, I gained a greater perspective of what love looks like.I found myself doing things that I never thought I would ever be able to do. I found myself dressing my dad and washing his feet. I started translating Bible passages and attempted to explain it to him in my broken Chinese. I would wake up at 5 something in the morning to help my mom bathe my dad. There were other times in the morning I would have to hand wash urine soaked clothes and sheets. I never though I would ever be able to do that especially since I was never fond of bodily fluids, however I did it without complaining. In fact I was just happy that I could love my dad in this way. God really stretched my capacity to care through serving my father in those specific ways especially because naturally I am very lazy.
Though my first initial reaction to my father’s Parkinson’s disease and cancer was one of sadness and fear; God was able to turn it into a blessing. From my dad’s salvation, to prayers, to experiencing the strength of God, I see how God can bring light into any situation, no matter how hopeless it might initially seem. I can say that my father, my family, and myself are definitely very blessed to have experienced God in this way.