Is it Possible to Think You Are Loving Someone, But At The Same Time, You Are Allowing Them to Travel Down the Road to Destruction?
When my dad (technically he was my stepfather, but was the only father who raised me, so hence he was my dad) got a horrific disease in the final year of his life, all his muscle functions were slowly stripped away, eventually killing him. He couldn’t even eat normally for the last 6 months of his life. So he had a feeding tube put in because the muscles in his throat would no longer work, making swallowing impossible. Think about how much of your social life has to do with eating and drinking, and now you completely lose that ability? It was a social nightmare and a slow horrible death. He confessed 3 1/2 weeks before he died that his condition stripped him of any pride he ever had possessed in his entire life. He could not even go to the bathroom anymore by himself. Ironically, however, it might have been the best place for my dad to be at the time. Here’s why…
My dad was a proud man. His two older sisters raised him, as both of his parents died when he was a very young boy. He went into the military as soon as he could, and toughened himself up to deal with a hard life in which he had faced. My dad was married once and divorced before he met my mom. He then married my mom and took care of my two sisters and me. He had two daughters from his first marriage. His first marriage ended not on the best of terms, and on top of this, you could only imagine when his Jewish son from his second marriage told this 62-year-old Jewish dad that he accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. In the Jewish culture, some families have funerals for family members who accept Christ. They consider Jewish believers in Christ dead as far as they are concerned, and sit Shivah for them (7 day morning period after death). That did not happen to me, praise the Lord! Interestingly, due to my dad’s very tough veneer, on the exterior, he simply let my belief in Christianity go. Maybe his thinking was, along with the rest of my family, that it would simply go away and I would snap out of it in time. He remained very quiet about it throughout the remainder of his life. My dad was a man of very few words, especially when it came to any topic with depth. I found a lot about him only after he died from my stepsisters, who were around him while he was younger, when I did not even know him yet.
Well I faced a major dilemma in the year 2000. While my dad was slowly dying in Florida where he lived, I resided in New Jersey. During the last 6 weeks of his life, I flew back and forth every weekend because I did not know when he would die, although I knew it was inevitable based on his terrible illness. The biggest problem with the whole scenario was that I was pretty confident he did not know Christ. I knew if he died, the likelihood I would see him in heaven would be a long shot. But if I witnessed to him, especially knowing it was a topic he never wanted to know or talk about, a subject that was off limits to him, it could potentially drum up negative and angry feelings toward me. It would be very, very risky to bring up Christ to him! I thought my dad very well could die mad at me for even bringing it up, and especially for attempting to proselytize him as he was rapidly declining in health. It could have caused a division between him and I right before his death. I desperately wanted to avoid that.
I went to my pastor during those very tough times and confessed this all to him. I asked him what to do. He said something like this, “would your rather know he was at peace with you, and he loved you when he died, but very likely your dad will go to hell? Or would it be better to take the chance and share the gospel with him, and even if he were to get mad at you, you would know he had a chance of accepting Christ due to the gospel seed you planted and watered before he died? Maybe he could eternally be in heaven with you someday if you share God’s “Good News” with him?” All I could say was uh oh. Got to tell you, not the warm and fuzzy counsel I really wanted to hear from my pastor that made things easier for me. This was an extremely difficult scenario, and this advice put me in great turmoil. You can only imagine how I cried out to the Lord to help me decide what to do next. I did not want my dad to die mad at me, but I did not want to even think for a second about him going to hell for eternity. It was a torturous dilemma! Should I love and keep peace with him and potentially watch him go to hell, just to protect my feelings and myself? I hope no one else ever has to face this scenario in their lives, but I have a sneaking suspicion, they have, are right now, or will, with someone they know!
A week before he died, he was sleeping about 23½ hours a day. He barely had a muscle left that was working in his body. It was horrible and no person should ever have to go through this, trust me on this. My dad wanted to die at home, not at a hospice facility, no matter how bad he got. I flew to Florida the weekend before his death, not yet having witnessed Christ to him. I did know time was running out, but I could not get up the courage. I was wrestling with God on this (maybe comparably to like Jacob did), making every excuse in the book not to share Christ with him. But the Holy Spirit ultimately left me with no choice. I could not let him slip into eternity never sharing Christ. So I decided to sleep in the same room with him, staying up all day-and-night, trying to catch him while he was awake for just the few minutes he would be while I was in Florida. I needed to sleep in a bed next to him, not to let any potential opportunity slip by. The Saturday morning before he died, he woke up for a very short time, and God gave me an opportunity in this very short window. I shared with him the gospel message, although it was a very “light” one. It was a message I believed he could understand to come to a saving faith in Christ, but not overly complicated, as he had limited thinking capacity at that point. I did it…praise God! And this was the right time for him to listen to what I had to say due to his failing health. I believe this is exactly where he needed to be to finally listen to the gospel message. When I was done talking to him, he almost immediately fell right back to sleep. I did not know what his reaction was to what I told him. Was he mad, did he even get what I said, what was it? I simply would not find out for at least a little while.
I stayed until Monday (2 days later) when I had to fly back to NJ to get back to work. I did not want to leave, as I knew he was quickly slipping away. The doctors said my dad had about 3 months left at that point, but that seemed hard to believe seeing him in the condition that he was in. Even if that were true, he might not be conscious for much of that time. Late in the afternoon in which I had to leave for the airport, I refused to do so until he got up again, even if I missed my flight. He had not been awake for much of the time since I shared the “Good News.” I’ll never forget, right before I had to leave to make it to the airport on time, he opened his eyes as I sat at his bedside praying he would wake up. I said to him when he did, that I had to go, but I would be back to see him on Friday (in 4 days). And barely even being able to speak at this point, this is what he said ever so softly to me, and I will never, ever forget it… “I just want you to know I heard everything you said to me the other day.” I think my response to this was the toughest thing I ever had to say to anyone in my life. I said this, “if you did, and you truly believed what I said to you, and if you will be in heaven with me and my immediate family for eternity, go on ahead and save a place for us.” I told him I looked forward to seeing him there healed, and he had my permission to let go and go on ahead, even if I did not get a chance to see him again on this earth. I truly did not want to see him suffer any longer if he could be healed and be with Christ. That would only be selfish on my part. I said goodbye at that point, not realizing that would really be the last time I would ever see him conscious again on this earth.
I cried, and I cried, and I cried. And I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed on that flight home. People on that plane ride home must have heard me sobbing, but I did not care. I asked God specifically for these things on that flight, although I am not sure theologically my prayers were entirely appropriate. They were:
(1) If my dad truly believed in Christ, to take him as fast as possible so he would not have to suffer any longer.
(2) If my dad truly believed, if there was some way I could have assurance that it was true, I wanted it.
(3) It would be wonderful if that assurance could come from someone else telling me, even more spectacularly if that someone that told me was not there to see the events, and did not know all the details.
Not sure I had the right to specifically ask for all that, but I did. The reason for #3 was that I felt like I was in a catch-22 situation with request #2. If God revealed to me my dad was saved, I wasn’t sure I could entirely believe Him…it would have been too amazing for my dad to come to faith, especially under those conditions! But on the flip side, if God told me my dad was not saved, I would not have wanted to believe it was true, and would have explained it away. Do you see why I asked for someone else to tell me? In a sense, I put God in a no win situation with my condition of unbelief. I needed someone else’s help to get the assurance I was looking for.
Well, the next day (Tuesday) after I left Florida, my dad got so bad; my mother was forced to put him into hospice. This was despite his wishes, and my previously begging her not to do so. Her endurance had run out. It was a long trying road for her and the care for him that was necessary was too hard for a non-trained professional. When she called me and told me she needed to do this, I was not happy with her. So I told her I would fly back to stay with him while he was in hospice for the duration of his life, no matter how long that would be. I could not get back to Florida for a few days though, but my sister graciously flew out there to stay with him. That was a huge relief to me, as I did not want him to be alone in a place he did not want to be in his dying days. In the next day or so, one of his final muscles gave out…his vocal cords. At that point, he was trapped within his own body, unable to speak, and barely could move. I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed those same 3 things over and over again. My next flight back was for Friday, but being my sister was there, I pushed it back until Saturday morning. I can’t entirely remember why I did that, but there was something I needed to get done, especially if I was now going to stay there for a prolonged period of time while he remained in hospice.
When I got back Saturday morning to see him, he was ice cold, blue, and could barely breath. He was going to die at any time according to the hospice workers. I immediately asked to clear the room when I got to the hospice, prayed over him, asking for God to take him home if my dad was one of His children. My dad was officially pronounced dead approximately 4 hours later. In that time, something amazing happened though. My stepsister, one of his daughters from his first marriage, was flying down from New York to say goodbye to him. She was supposed to be there by 12 pm. She missed her flight and now would not arrive until somewhere around 4 pm. The odds of him being alive were slim to none by 4 o’clock, as his breaths at 12 pm were almost gone. Every so often after 12 pm, he took a very shallow breath, becoming fewer and farther between as every minute passed. Sometimes minutes went by between breaths. My dad was pronounced dead just after 3 pm. Very sadly, his daughter did not make it in time (or so it seemed). She got there only minutes after the pronouncement was complete, but the nurse had already left the room. His daughter came rushing in, although not knowing that the pronouncement had already occurred.
When she saw him, she recognized that he was dead, and she was too late. I told her he would hear, and she should say goodbye anyway. She should tell him what she needed to tell him despite what she thought. Did I believe what I was saying and that my dad would hear her? Not really sure…but I thought she needed to do that regardless. She yelled at me when I told her that, saying to me he was dead, and she blew it by being late, and that I was wrong and it was too late. She lashed out at me and told me that I did not know what I was talking about. I said to her strongly, you say your goodbyes to him, and do it now. She did! What happened next was amazing! While she did that, there came the shallowest breath and movement from my dad, for all in the room to see. The nurse came back after we called her in and said he was in fact still alive, and the previous pronouncement was premature. His daughter then poured out her heart to him even further. After she concluded, my dad’s jaw then dropped drastically, seemingly almost to the floor. Then he was officially pronounced dead. Amazingly, and I truly believe this, his daughter was the last one he wanted to see before he died, and somehow God had him hang on to make sure that happened…praise Him!!!
Why did I tell this story? Here is why…should I have loved him and kept the peace with my dad, so I could feel good when he died, at the possible expense of my dad’s salvation? Or did I boldly have to share the gospel with him as God prompted me to, despite it potentially having it cost me my peace and comfort not knowing if he went to his grave mad at me? You be the judge…
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P.S. A follow-up on my 3 prayer requests:
Prayer #1: If my dad truly believed in Christ, I asked God to take him as fast as possible, so he would not have to suffer any longer.
Answer: His prognosis went from 3 months, to him dying in 5 days, specifically after I shared the gospel “light” message with him.
Prayer #2: If my dad truly believed, if there was some way I could have absolute assurance from God that he did become a believer, I wanted that.
Answer: Even though I painted God in a corner on this one (see above), see prayer answer #3 for more details of how gracious and loving God really was with me.
Prayer #3: I asked and said it would be wonderful if that assurance could come from someone else telling me that it was true that my dad was saved, especially if that person was not even there and knew very few details, but knew his salvation to be true.
Answer: This dear Christian woman Carol at my job, who barely knew the situation, came in to my office when I got back to NJ to pass along her condolences. And she said something I will never forget, knowing very few details about the entire situation. Carol said, “Steve I just want you to know, I think your dad is in heaven with Christ.” I said Carol, “how could you possibly know that?” She said, “I don’t know, but I really think he is,” never really being able to explain why she ever said that to this day.
I do not know without a shadow of a doubt if my dad is in heaven with Christ right now. But if I was a betting man, I truly believe he is! Loving him was not letting him die in peace and keeping my mouth shut, but proclaiming the gospel message despite any and all personal costs! Now knowing there is a good chance I will be reunited with my dad in heaven, I realize I was stupid for being scared about sharing the Good News with him; waiting until his very last days. Stop fearing people like I did; fear God!! Love people despite what the personal cost may be to you, because the salvation of their soul is worth any personal sacrifice you can possibly make, especially if God uses it in His salvation process to save another. You think about that as you quietly wait for a perfect opportunity with someone you know and love, maybe even someone you know right now, while you waste so much precious time like I did. You may never get an opportunity if you wait too long, just because you were not bold enough to say anything, or because you could not take a chance that you might be rejected or someone might not like you for telling him or her the Truth. Things could change in a heartbeat and waiting could result in being too late! Praise God I got bold enough to share with my dad before his last heartbeat, all due to God’s prompting…although it got mighty, mighty close to not happening. Will you be bold enough in your current or future situation to witness Christ, at any and all costs to you, to a friend or loved one you know? You think about that, and allow God to speak to you about this, when and if the time ever comes in your life when it is time to speak about Christ to someone who is an unbeliever (Jas 4:17; 2 Tim 1:7)…