But as we started to drive away, I knew I had to go back in and talk to her. I just wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to say. The usual rehearsed script seemed so impersonal. “Lord, I’ll open my mouth and you please speak,” I prayed. She looked up expecting me to be buying something when I walked back in but I told her, “The Lord wouldn’t let me leave until I told you that He wants you to know that He knows you, He knows right where you are, He knows your baby and He is with you.” At this her entire countenance changed from sad to a big smile as she reached out her hand to take mine. Suddenly she seemed like a different person. The sadness in her eyes was gone and now they shone with hope and a measure of what I suspect was joyful relief that God had not rejected her. How a few words from the Lord can changes one’s whole perspective. She told me her name is Kate and I left with “God is with you, Kate.” I don’t know who was more blessed by that little exchange, Kate or me. When you share the Lord with someone like that, it seems He shares His joy with you. Nothing I could have found in any thrift store could equal the treasure God gave to me by allowing me to be a messenger of hope and love to Kate.
That was only the first of our God-ordained vacation experiences. Before I tell you the next one, I first need to tell you that when Melissa went to make our reservations for this week’s vacation several months ago, she originally made it for last week but felt uneasy about it and cancelled the reservation, not having God’s peace about it. But then she felt fine about making the reservation for the following week which was this week. When we got here we found that the suite was not what she had been promised. It was smaller and well, just not the more exclusive suite we expected. She tried to change to another apartment, but alas, there were none available. So we settled in, thanking God for it anyway. It wasn’t long before we began to hear an angry voice from next door and what sounded like an abused child, maybe a little girl of about five, we figured. It sounded like one angry father and then sounds of the child being, shall we say, spanked rather hard and a lot of screaming. It was horrible to hear. We had decided to stay in that day and prayed through a good bit of the day for the family next door. Finally after what seemed like a rather violent episode the father slammed out of the apartment and left and we could hear the mother trying to soothe the child. How do you make sense of that to a little one?
The next day it began again. We could not bear to hear this anger all over again. Praying, I had the idea of writing an anonymous letter to the father and slipping it under their door. But when I started to write my own words, they wouldn’t come. It seemed as if the Lord was saying, “Let Me write it.” The words came to me like prophesy does, like I was taking dictation from the Lord. We slipped it into a blank 9X12" envelope that hotel info came in and left it at their door addressed “To The Daddy of This Family.” When we came out of our apartment a while later, there was the father in the hallway with not a five year old little girl as we interpreted the voice to indicate, but a two year old adorable blonde little boy holding his father’s hand. A two year old getting that kind of beating!! Horrifying. I caught a look at the man’s face - it was a fairly good looking but hardened face, a look as if he himself had seen too much violence in his own life. Melissa wondered if he left yesterday because he was afraid he would hurt his son more than he already did. I wondered if he'd just recently returned from Iraq or an army duty and was under some PTSD. What causes a man to be so violent to his little son?
In his hand, he held the letter and the opened envelope. I could not tell if he had read it yet and we nodded hello as strangers. We continued to pray for this family because the father seemed to me as victimized as the little guy – both victimized by violence, the perpetrator as well as the victim. I wish I could tell you that the screaming stopped completely but it was somewhat quieter next door. One incident began but quickly stopped. Perhaps the letter had its impact. One letter is not likely to stop a life time of rage, but one word from Yeshua sure can impact a life. Melissa and I believe God saw to it that we were in this apartment next door to them this week, to pray and to deliver God’s words of hope through the letter.
So when things don’t go as you planned, wait and see what God may have for you to do for Him. All He needs is a voice or a hand to touch someone’s life with His love. He may have greater plans than you did.
Would you stop for a moment and pray for Kate, her boyfriend and her baby, and for the family next door for God’s mercy and goodness so that His blessings may permeate their lives. And that in each of their situations, they would learn to let the Lord carry them.
I’m sharing the letter "to the daddy" with you as I have the sense that someone reading this may find it of value, perhaps to share with someone else. Pass it on, in other words. Click the comment button below and leave a message if you do to encourage us all. So here goes:
To the Daddy in this family,
I know your frustration and your rage, Son. This child of yours is causing you to replay some of what you experienced in your own life, though you may not remember it or connect with it right now. Your anger is not really against your child but against yourself for not knowing how to control the child.
Punishment never teaches a child to love you. It teaches them to fear you and fear is not the same as loving respect. Isn’t that what you really want, love and respect? Discipline, on the other hand, will model for a child proper behavior, and love and tenderness will bring about a child’s devotion to you as one who is their protector, not someone who does them harm. Perhaps you can recall some of those very feelings.
I know what it is to be beaten and mistreated, but out of my own experience – motivated by compassion – I forgave those who abused me. I also forgave you. That’s why I took the abuse, even leading to death. To forgive! I offer to you not only forgiveness for where you have been less than perfect in your life – or angry without justifiable cause, and I also offer to you a new life, one in which you can become a loving husband and father, a man whom others respect as a role model of kindness, dignity, trust and stable maturity. It will take some time to learn but I will be with you the whole way – if you will come to me, if you will turn all your troubles, and the anger and sadness in your heart over to me. That would be the most manly thing you can do.
One day you will not be as young as you are now. You will want the love and security of your family around you to treasure you as the father and even the grandfather whom they want to be just like when they are older. You can become that role model of a life well lived.
I’m here for you whenever you call upon me to teach you how to live such a life. Whenever you want my forgiveness, it’s here for you, as is my wisdom and my eternal love. I’m only a spoken word away, Son.
JESUS
