My Spiritual Autobiography - Part XII

Well, I am going to close my spiritual mini-saga here - in Part XII. It's been an interesting (at least for me...) process of describing where I've been. I hope I've been able to convey it in a manner that puts the emphasis on God and not on me. I'll defer to the judgement of others on whether I have succeeded or not.

As of right now, 'Boo and Suzie were joined, in mid 2007, by a little brother. The "sports car" of my life has sped up again, but this time I'm hanging on. As my kids get older, I am growing in my understanding of what fatherhood is. There are so many times when I hear things come out of my mouth that I am saying to my kids that I could so readily see God saying to me and it is humbling. I am beginning to appreciate the wisdom of God regarding human sexuality. The demands that are placed on me through the mechanism of loving my kids far exceed anything that could be placed on me through any other means. And the rewards that I receive in loving my kids don't even make a "pit stop" at my brain on their way to crashing into my heart. On some level, I must appear at times to people who know me as an emotional wreck now that I am a parent because I am riding more of an emotional rollercoast now than the rest of my life combined. Case in point: just the other day I was moved to tears: (backstory) I consider it a healthy habit to reflect on the day of my death on a regular basis - not to obsess on it morbidly - but to regularly ask myself "If my death was imminent, how would I live today differently?". I then try to look at the reasons I'm not doing what I would do if I knew I was dying. But the other day I came up with a different spin on the whole thing. Normally, as I reflect on my death, I literally picture myself on my deathbed waiting to die. I try to imagine the doubts that might go through my mind, I try to imagine calling out to God in that time and I try to imagine how meaningless the things of the world will seem to me at that moment. I even imagine what my guardian angel will be doing for me at that time. But the other day a different thought came into my mind - rather than having a mental image from the perspective of me laying on my back looking at the ceiling (which I typically picture), I spontaneously had a picture of being outside of myself and seeing that I was surrounded by many people. The thought suddenly came to me that these were my children (grown up) and even grandchildren. I had a strong sense of their loyalty to me and that they were praying for me as I was dying. I had never pictured that before - I always thought of my death as being a solitary experience - just me and God. The feeling of being surrounded by their love moved me to tears. I received it as a foreshadowing of what "eye has not seen, ear has not heard... what God has ready for those who love him". The problem is I was sitting alone in the coffee shop when this happened and I just started crying for seemingly no reason. Ahh, the joys of parenting.

Thank you God for all you have done for me, are doing for me today and will do for me in the future. I love you.

NOC