How do I even start this blog?
One of the most significant traumas in my life occurred when I was in 6 th grade. I remember the last time I saw him standing, my father that is. I can still visualize it to this day. He stood next to our one family car, I kissed him goodbye before running on to the school bus, then he boarded the plane to Sand Diego California.
He was going to visit our grandparents, brothers & sisters of whom all resided on the West Coast. Hence their name…our West Coast Fam! On the plane my dad caught pneumonia, which is typically curable unless your parents are devout Christian Scientists. I remember speaking to him on the phone as his voice and breath became unrecognizable. Being so young there was little I could do but pray.
What we did not realize is that during his two weeks stay he was slowly dying & no medical attention was granted to him. The religion my grandparents believed in did not believe in medical intervention, therefore my father was not given the option to seek it. By the grace of God, his brother, my uncle Van, pretended to fall asleep by him one evening & snuck him out of the house and into the hospital. My mom flew out to sit by his side.
100 days he lay on a ventilator as we tried to maintain our child like life living at our cousin’s house. My brother and my code word to request an update from my aunt who took us
under her wing was repeatedly, “Is he out of the woods?”. It was confirmed that if he were to survive that he would never walk again. On the hundredth day, we received the news! By the grace of God, he was not only alive but, “Out of the woods”!
I can visually see him coming through the tarmac in his wheelchair. We had our father back, however there was a buried unforgivable feeling in my gut. My grandparents were going to allow my father to die for the sake of their religion. This realization carried years of twisted beliefs about faith. Until my father took his first step again.
Yes, on a mental breakdown my father began to walk again. The Master Healer, my God, renewed the doctor’s prognosis of never being able to walk again. Not only did he walk again, but he walked me down the aisle on my wedding day. I never verbally forgave my grandparents while they were alive yet when I came face to face with the choice of forgiveness, I obliged.
Through the trauma, my faith in Jesus sustained me even though my grandparent’s religion nearly killed my father.
Prayer…
I pray that anyone portraying their life as a messenger of Christ, open the door for one another, accepting that everyone shall have a choice to seek medical attention in which God created.
Let it Be!
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