It was autumn of 2012. My father returned from a business trip to America with terrible back pain. The doctor took x-rays but couldn’t find any problems. “You must have pinched a nerve,” he said. “Rest as much as possible and it should get better.”
That was the beginning of my father’s long stay at home. Most children would probably be happy to have their father home with them, but for me it was rather uncomfortable to have my him around 24/7.
Ever since I could remember, my father was almost never at home. He was always away working, sometimes for days, weeks, or even months. He was also very strict and would not tolerate the slightest improper behavior. I was so afraid of displeasing my father, thinking that I had to be “good enough” for him to love me, I was afraid to say or do anything in front of him for fear of doing something that might displease him, not understanding that he was strict because he loved me and wanted the best for my future.
Often it is the same with our heavenly Father. We try to be “good enough” in order to earn His favor and love, thinking that the problems and difficulties we face in life are some sort of punishment for our wrongdoing. In reality, the trials we face in life are God’s way of refining and preparing us for the wonderful plan He has for our future.
“For [our earthly fathers] verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but [God] for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.” – Hebrews 12:10 (KJV).
“Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” – John 15:2
My father began working from home, only occasionally attending meetings, but instead of improving, his back pain continued to get worse until finally he could hardly walk. By December 2012, his doctor, realizing that there must be some serious problem, sent my father to a larger hospital where he was admitted. Still the problem was not found, and he was sent home a few weeks later, walking on two canes. The day after he came home, he stumbled as he was getting out of bed, throwing him into excruciating pain. Unable to walk, he could not even go to the hospital, but after weeks of slow rehabilitation, was finally able to walk again. However, as soon as he was able to walk again, the same thing happened, rendering him completely bedridden, unable to even turn over on his own.
When he was finally able to walk down from the third-floor apartment where we lived, he went to the hospital, where, as the nurses lifted him onto the stretcher to get an MRI, his back was twisted again. The MRI revealed that several of his vertebrae had been crushed, the last one having been crushed right there at the hospital. Panicking, the doctors began looking for the underlying cause. Mid-February 2013, my father was admitted into the hospital again, blood samples were taken, and my mother, facing an uncertain future and the possibility of being left a widow with 11 children including a baby, exhausted from weeks of caring for my father, came home to wait for the results from the doctor.
We were all sitting around the dinner table when the phone call came. My father had cancer. Called multiple myeloma, it is a rare, incurable type of bone marrow cancer which causes the bones to melt, hence the back pain and crushed vertebrae. My father had tumors in several places, including his chest, hip and collar bone. With water already stacking in his lungs, the doctors said that he most likely would not live another month. Everyone was in shock. Despite my lack of a close relationship with my father, I did love him, and it hurt to see my once tall, strong, competent, perfectionist father now completely helpless and unable to do anything on his own, facing death.
My father was transferred to the provincial cancer center, where the doctors, expecting him to die any day, gave him unlimited doses of morphine to ease his pain. The morphine did little to relieve the pain, but it did cause him to be in a daze most of the time, falling asleep part way through his sentences, his brain hardly functioning. Then one night of early March, my father’s pain suddenly disappeared. The blood test from the following day showed that his cancer count had miraculously dropped. From that day on he gradually grew stronger, and by the end of March was able to come home.
My father’s cancer did not go away completely, however, and since then it has been nearly ten years of off and on chemotherapy treatment, including two stem cell transplants. Because of this, he has spent most of the past nine years either at home or in the hospital, which has allowed him to spend more time with the family than ever before. Over the years, these experiences have drawn us closer together as a family, and I have come to know my father as the loving, caring father that he is. I now realize that he loves me unconditionally, knowing that I’m not perfect, that I will fail, and although he is faithful to tell me when I do wrong, there is nothing I can ever do to change his love for me.
It is the same with our heavenly Father. He sees our every thought and knows our every deed. He sees all our sins, and yet He loved us before we even knew Him and made a way for us to be saved from sin through Jesus. There is nothing we can do to increase or decrease His love for us because He already loves us unconditionally.
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8
“Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:39
When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we become children of God, meaning that our Father will teach and discipline us for our good, so when we experience difficult times, we can be assured that it is not because God doesn’t love us, but because He does, and whatever we are experiencing will in the end be for our benefit.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” – Romans 8:28
My father is still fighting cancer, and although I live facing the fact that he could get worse and die anytime, I know that whatever happens will be the best for all of us, and that God will take care of all our needs.
Through my father’s illness, I not only came to know the true love of my earthly father but am also realizing more and more how much my heavenly Father loves me, even though His love and blessings sometimes come in disguise.
“Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” – Hebrews 12:11
[I realize that there are some fathers who are abusive and do not love their children the way that God loves us. Abuse and discipline are two totally different things, and I do not mean to say that any form of abuse is okay. God created the family as a picture of what our relationship with Him should be like, but man’s sin has ruined the beautiful picture that God made. If anyone reading this article has not experienced the love of an earthly father, please know that God is your Father, He loves you unconditionally, and nothing can ever change that.]
