See You Later, Dad!

After mentioning my blog to a friend, I clicked on it and realized there should be an update.  When my Dad had his heart attack and then stroke, I began a Caring Bridge website (www.caringbridge.org/visit/richallen) and faithfully updated there.  Last post here found me telling Dad to hang on!  We all hung on through those 2 1/2 weeks in the Neuro ICU, but on June 27, my Dad left this world to enter Heaven and meet Jesus face to face!  None of us would have chosen to say goodbye this soon but the time of visitation and then Dad's funeral were simply more than I would have imagined.  Yes it was all heartwrenching, but just to see, hear and feel how his life affected so many people was powerful!

This is a picture my Aunt Maureen took just a week before my Dad's heart attack.  Sister and brother had met in the mountains of Georgia for a weekend of walking to waterfalls and catching up after having not spent much time together through the years.  The time together was a gift to each of them, and the beautiful photos Aunt Maureen took are such a gift to all of us now.  We do not always understand God's timing (or even like it for that matter), but it is always perfect.  

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

    neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the Lord.

9 

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,

    so are my ways higher than your ways

    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 

As the rain and the snow

    come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

    without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

11 

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

    It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

12 

You will go out in joy

    and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

    will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

    will clap their hands.

13 

Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,

    and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the Lord’s renown,

    for an everlasting sign,

    that will endure forever.”

(Isaiah 55:8-13)