"Our Father" on Maynard Drive

Do your prayers ever get cut short in a good way? One of mine did this morning.

As I left for a funeral, my mind was mulling over the music to be set up at the organ, what to say during the short choir warm-up, routine tasks to be done pre-funeral as the organist for this solemn service in the life of a church congregation. 

Strains of a Schubert violin sonata over the radio divided my attention, until a red light ahead awakened me to the valuable minutes I had between home and the church. Pastor Joe Vought remarked once in a sermon that being in a car alone offers such a rich opportunity for prayer. As example, he said he had been practicing the habit of praying through the Lord’s Prayer when he came to a red stop light. [Pastors, take heart in that we your parishioners often remember small things you said even years later!]

Slowing to a stop at the intersection of Maynard and Kildaire Farm Road, I began to pray. “Our Father . . .” And that is where I stopped for the remainder of the drive. The funeral today would be especially hard because it was for a woman five years younger than I am. No signs of what was about to happen had been evident. On a night when she normally came to choir practice, something snapped and she took her own life.

Oh Lord! Oh my Father! Of Father of all your children!

The Holy Spirit prays for us when we can only groan. These loving prayers go too deep for words, holding us close to the heart of God. Surely the Holy Spirit was there, praying for this troubled child in her hour of deepest need.

Our Father. Yes, Lord, my Father and the Father of this troubled woman, and the Father of those who loved her deeply and are swimming in grief and unanswered questions. 

My prayer continued with thoughts about my own Dad. How much he cared for me and loved me! How I miss him now that he is home in heaven! How deeply God loves me in a far greater measure! 

The deep, deep love of Jesus. The amazing love of God. The tender care of the Holy Spirit. All of this love is present, true, and holy even in life’s worst moments. Even when this daughter of the heavenly Father, one who had professed Christ all her life, became despondent or perhaps insane in her final moments. Her struggle did not erase God’s love or his care for her in having angels at the ready to escort her home.

How very comforting to look at the light shining through these words. To know this child of God had prayed these same words countless times in faith and solidarity with her brothers and sisters in Christ. That God the Father was and is her Father. To know that nothing she thought or did would diminish God's love for her in Christ her Lord. 

As Pastor Kevin Johnson would say in his beautiful funeral sermon, “Nothing shall separate us from the love of God. . . not anything in all creation. Or to paraphrase for today, not mental illness, or suicide.” These beautiful and true words will have the final word over tragedy!

This deep, fatherly love is what all people of all times yearn for and long for above all else! Even if they can’t quite put their finger on the longing. On this day, I was especially reminded what a privilege it is to address the Creator of all that is as “Our Father” and “My Father.”

Turning into the church parking lot, I prayed that God would infuse all of us serving in this hour, so that, in small ways, our echoes of God’s love would give comfort and bring peace to those gathered.

It is a warm, sunny, spring-like day. It has been another day in my own history when deep truths have shone amid the rubble. 

The lessons of these kinds of day are hard, aren’t they? 

Times like this make being 

a choir member, 

or a pastor, 

or a member of a church, 

or a friend,

or a church organist,

very difficult. And yet, exceedingly rewarding by living through them held in the embrace of God's great love.

Blessings of peace to all who are reading this reflection.

You are of more value than many sparrows. Matthew 10

 MUSIC LINKS

Beautiful Savior - piano solo by Nancy Gerst

"The peace may be exchanged" - from "Rubrics" by Dan Locklair, with Nancy Gerst, organist

 

 

Baby bird and sunset photos by Katharine Micks

Used by permission.