A Visit With My Dad
By: Shane Mcneil
Tags: Christian Living, Faith and Life, God, It Happened To Me, Jesus

I’ve never seen my dad enter a church. Not even when I was baptized. Not even to this day. Growing up I remember him always being this big, burly biker guy. He lived a hard lifestyle, and his current health is the result of that.

It wasn’t incredibly surprising when he ended up in the hospital. Distressing but not surprising. After almost a week he still wasn’t ready to go home so they sent him to a long-term care facility. Honestly, my sister and I were afraid he may never go back home.

The Visit

The first time my wife and I went to visit my dad in the long-term care facility I remember thinking how he looked so tired. He had a look in his eyes that made me wonder if he’d ever be the same again, if he’d ever recover from this.

As I sat there visiting my dad, I could hear God telling me “You need to pray with your dad”. It started out calmly, almost like He was speaking to me from a distant corner of my mind. I wish my faith was stronger, but my first reaction was to shake it off, like it was just a passing thought.

A few minutes later I heard it again, “Don’t leave until you pray with him”. At this point I knew it wasn’t just some idea in my mind, it was God. I still argued with Him though. I said, “He doesn’t want to pray with me Lord, I’ve never seen or heard him pray. When I leave, I’ll pray for him, but I don’t need to pray with him”. God responded, “I said pray with him”.

A little more time passed; it was getting close to when I needed to leave. We were at the point of our conversation where things were wrapping up. God yelled at me, “DO NOT LEAVE HERE UNTIL YOU PRAY WITH THIS MAN!”. I was literally shaken. I knew I couldn’t leave without obeying. I stammered, “d-dad, would you mind if we pray together before I leave?”

It was like a light was turned on in his soul, his whole countenance brightened. He said, “Son, I’d like that a lot”. So, we prayed. We prayed a humble request for God’s healing mercies. We prayed a prayer of gratitude for all He’s given us and the opportunity to spend time together that day.

The next time I saw my dad he still wasn’t doing great, but he looked and sounded a little better. We had a good visit and then as things were winding down, he said to me, “Son, you know that thing we did right before you left last time?” I said, “yeah” and he said, “I felt better after that than I have the entire time I’ve been in here”. I said, “God is good, dad” and he said, “Yeah, He is, son. Listen, would you mind if we did it again?” I said, “I’d like that a lot” and we prayed again.

The Return Home

I visited my dad several more times while he was in that facility and every time, he asked me if I’d pray with him before I left. It took several more weeks, but by the grace of God he recovered to the point that he could go back home. Even now, whenever I visit him, we pray together. It’s been an amazing blessing to us both and it never would’ve happened if I hadn’t listened to the Lord when He spoke to me.

You see, I know God still has things planned for me because I’m still breathing, sitting here typing this story out. But even if I dropped dead right now and my entire purpose on this Earth was to plant that seed that might just lead to my dad’s salvation, I’d be cool with that. As a matter of fact, I’d consider it worth every ounce of pain I’ve ever experienced, to know that I played a part in God’s plan of salvation for him. And that’s how it is with Jesus. Even if no one in the history of the world accepted His gift of salvation but YOU, He still would’ve considered dying on the cross worth it. So great is His love for us. The least we could do is listen when He’s trying to tell us something.