TZAV

Turning the Hearts of the Fathers

Malachi 4:5, 6

“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. 6He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers [a reconciliation produced by repentance], so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse [of complete destruction].

It was 2020: COVID, lockdowns, masks, fatalities, and fear seemed to govern the earth. I had left New York and moved to Central Florida to be near my elderly parents, determined to offer whatever care I could. My closest friends worried deeply about my decision. They knew the history, the wounds, the cost of returning to people who had shaped my earliest traumas. Two of my dear friends asked me a question that pierced straight through my turmoiled heart: “If you don’t do this, will you regret it?” Their words cut like a knife.

And so I said yes to God’s commandment to honor my parents.

Leviticus 19:32

“You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

During those first two years in Florida, I learned more about both of my parents' childhood trauma than I had in my entire life. My father had been raised by an angry, alcoholic mother and a father who abandoned him. Trauma upon trauma had shaped the man I called Dad.

I didn’t know he was dying. Even my mother didn’t realize how sick he truly was. But looking back, I can see the clue he gave me. One day, he remembered holding me as a baby. This gruff man, who had shattered my young heart with his harsh words and mercilessly punished me for receiving C's, D's, and the occasional F on my report card, often punished me for things my brothers did and for countless other actions he deemed deserving of a beating, looked at me with a tenderness I had never witnessed before. His eyes softened as he drifted back into memories of a time long gone.

 I didn’t recognize it then, but something in him was shifting. Something in him was saying goodbye.

His eyes were different that day, full of love. His voice trembled as he said, “I remember when you were born. I remember holding you,” and he lifted his aged arms into a cradling position, as if he were holding me again. That was the sign I missed. He rarely spoke without finding a way to wound me. But this time, he didn’t.

I was in Panama City when the phone call came. I rushed back to Central Florida. The next day, I took my mother to the ICU. My father was unresponsive. After waiting for a while, we left. Later, when everyone else had gone, I found myself alone with him. I felt the Spirit nudging me. I leaned close and whispered, “You and I always butted heads. We’re so much alike. I want you to know I love you, and I forgive you for everything.” I don’t know if he heard me, but I trusted the Father to carry my words to his heart.

The next day, my mother didn’t want to return, but I insisted. When we arrived, he was awake but unable to speak because of the respirator. His eyes followed us, never leaving my mother. He seemed to be drinking her in like a man who had spent a long time in a desert, thirsty for a deep draught of life-sustaining water. 

Fear spoke loudly through his eyes.

Through a series of Spirit-arranged moments, the head nurse suggested hospice, and the chaplain was called. He happened to be a Seventh-day Adventist. I shared my testimony with him, the story of me, the real me, the one that my father had never heard or known.. He never knew how God saved me, healed me, and led me out of addiction into counseling, writing, and speaking. Then, in another divine appointment, my mother’s pastor arrived. These men of God prayed over my father.

After they left, the Holy Spirit led me to speak directly to the spirit of fear that had entered him as a terrified child and ruled him all his life. I spoke to his heart about his heavenly Father’s love. I told him he had nothing to fear, that he would fall asleep and meet the Lover of his soul, the One who knit him together in his mother’s womb, the One who had collected every tear he had cried since boyhood. I read Scripture over him as the Spirit brought verses to mind. Ironically, that very morning, Psalms 23 was given to me. 

I read Psalms 23 to the dying man: this man who called my name, causing my young knees to tremble with terror. I read Psalms 23 to the man who beat me with razor straps and belts featuring hard steel buckles. I read Psalm 23 to the man I yearned to love me, hoping he would accept me.

We stayed for hours, but eventually my elderly mother needed to go home. We planned to return in the morning. That visit never came.

At 9 p.m. that night, the Holy Spirit told me to turn off all electronics and pray for my father. For twenty minutes I prayed, speaking to his spirit, not knowing what I was doing—only listening and obeying.

Then the phone rang. My mother was sobbing. My father had passed away while I was praying.

The Holy Spirit was present at his bedside in the ICU along with the angels. A war was being waged over his soul. My father professed belief in Jesus, thanking Him every morning and night. But he hated religion, refusing to go to church. I told him that’s ok, because Jesus hated religion too!

Only God knows the truth of his heart.

A few days later, my son flew in from New York. As my mother went through my father’s briefcase, she found—at the very bottom—a black-and-white photograph of me. Not of her. Not of my brothers. Just me. He had kept me tucked away with his most important documents.

Life’s most important memories are held in locked spaces of the heart.

Do I have regrets? Yes. I regret allowing my own trauma to keep my heart armored against him. I regret never being able to reach his brokenness with my own healing. I regret that he never knew the real me, the person my heavenly Father knit me together to be.

But I do not regret moving to Florida. I do not regret walking my parents home. I do not regret being present to hear their stories of childhood trauma, stories that explain so much of our own.

PS: I wrote this on my father's 90th birthday, which came as a surprise to me; it was another layer of healing! Happy birthday, Dad!