My Father's Voice

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

-C.S. Lewis

Source

Sometimes I still think that I can hear his voice . . . 

Down in the kitchen--gruff and deep,the low tones of a winter's night wrapped in sandpaper.

And I can imagine his heavy-work-worn hands, the scar on his thumb where it was almost lost in a carpentry accident. 

And I can hear him calling me "Fuzz;" his nickname for me because of my frizzy hair and remember the way that he made his coffee midnight-strong in the morning. 

I used to wake up around the same time that he did--5 am--he because he didn't want to "waste the day," and me to be able to pray before I went to school. 

We didn't want to waste the day . . . 

But his Day was wasted and he turned away from the Voice of the Father, the voice that once called him and beckoned the proud heart to Himself. 

The proud heart that broke --

Broke his family and his God and hardened into a molten rock, so thick and deep and stony, and it wouldn't be broken, only used to crush. 

The hearts of the ones who loved him most--

The hearts of the ones who called him husband and daddy--

The hearts of the three little girls who held his hands and sat on his lap, and who craved his love and affection and attention.

The heart of the woman who lived and built her life around his--who always wanted the best for him and forgave the lies over and over and over.  

They almost broke. 

But the Lord uses stones that try to crush to purify and to magnify His grace and mercy through heartache and loss.

We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. (II Corinthians 4:8-10)

The Father of mercy--who causes grief, but will yet show compassion . . . 

And I learned through those days, those years dim with sorrow and mourning and wishing, praying that things could be different, that my Heavenly Father is enough--

That He fills things that are empty with joy--

That He makes rivers from deserts

The wilderness into a road--

And the Valley of Achor into a door of hope. 

Sometimes I still hear his voice, 

But it has grown fainter--

And my Heavenly Father's, stronger--richer--fuller--bright and strong and full of hope and redemption--has grown more beautiful and real to me.  

I can hear my Father's voice.