two years ago

two years.

i'd say pretty much every day i think about it.

times spent together.
the simple moments.
his stories.
his mannerisms.

mostly, i think about questions i never asked him or what he would do in a certain situation.

i'd say that the death of a loved one (friend, family member, parent, etc.) affects people more than anything else in the world.

i hear stories or news reports of older people or celebrities who are celebrating birthdays and if they are older than 70 i think to myself "that isn't fair." my dad lived 70 full years... more than enough. he did so many things. preached Christ. lived a wholesome life... and yet i think, in some ways, that he was cheated out of a few more years.

but i know that just as life happens, death happens.


it dawned on me today... does the death of Jesus affect me as much as the death of my father?

i don't know that i've truly ever understood what Jesus' death on the cross really means. o.k. i know what it means... but i say this because i don't think about it in the same way that i think about the death of my dad... maybe it hasn't become as real as it needs to be.

i need to ponder this some more.

my life has never been and never will be the same again, since that fateful morning two years ago when a heart attack took my dad away in some hotel room in Scranton, PA.

when i stop to think about it, my life has never been and never will be the same again since that fateful afternoon some 2000 years ago when Christ willingly took the pain, punishment and death on the cross so that i may one day live.

the neat thing is that the story of Jesus and his salvation truth was presented to me by my father. for that i am grateful. eternally.

it's weird that it may have taken me two years to correlate the loss of my father to the loss of God's son. that loss means so much more than most Christians could ever imagine.

the memories live on. and everything continues to change.
such is life. what will i make of it?




*i blogged this today sitting in the same office as the picture above. same desk pad and everything. that is probably 20 years old.