Death? Life? Thoughts

I wasn't trying to but I unintentionally created a pun with the title. This Thanksgiving set me in reality: that my parents and my grandma will not be here forever. I think I'm independent in making decisions, but I still need to rely on them for moral support, comfort, and provisions. This week made me realized how lucky blessed I am to have two parents that work. One that has had two surgeries this year and just turned 64, but who still is able to retain his job. And my grandma, who turned 80 this week. Both of my grandfathers passed away at 80, but my grandma still cooks and cleans for all of us. She's still able to even go to a Rockets game. I know that this is all God's blessing. I've tried to rewrite this next sentence to explain what I'm feeling, but I don't think any words can express my gratitude and my thanks.

It's hard for me to appreciate people. I've grown up taking things for granted and it's difficult for me to take a step back and see how much my friends and family have done for me. But it's crazy to see what God has done. I've asked for a more sensitive heart, and He definitely delivered this week. Sometimes I think about what will happen when my family is gone, but God somehow brought me to the passage in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

"Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him." 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

Grieving is normal, but it's whether you grieve with hope or not that is important. Hope is something that is very fragile to me. But knowing that we will all die and rise with Christ, that has so much power in how you live. It's easy to let the sadness of death reach you, but if we have hope that our friends and family will be saved because they believe, then death is nothing more than a prolonged vacation, leave of absence. "Thanks for the memories the past years, see you later." Death is nothing more than these mere words because of the sacrifice Jesus committed in order to defeat death.


Having all of these thoughts, it made me sad to think that if my dad passed away today, I would never see him again. I drove him home from dinner today. For a good 5 minutes I was thinking if I should talk to him about God, or if I should even bring it up. But his life is too precious to me; why the heck was I wasting a few minutes deciding whether essentially he is worth trying to save or not? Or why was I so scared?

I did talk to him. I don't even remember exactly how it started, but I think I asked him how he felt about his surgery. He says he sees this as luck. My mom and I see it as God's doing. Talking to him made me realize how much he didn't know about God. He sees everything as "cause and effect" and tries to come up with reasons for why something happens. It's his "scientific" mind. To me, I see God so clearly in his surgery. It frustrates me that he can't see the same way. I can't put words down right now, I've learned not to push the moments when I can't seem to write anything. Overall, it was sad to see how against he was in getting know God. But it did give me hope, helped me to start praying for him again. I hope  have faith that God will reveal himself to my dad even more than He did this year.