He’s Already Here
Last Friday was one of my favorite kinds of days—I wrote in the morning, went for a run along the Brushy Creek Trail in Austin, Texas, had a mid-afternoon barbecue lunch with Lisa (we were in Texas; BBQ is essential), texting with some friends we don’t see that often but really enjoy (I had found his doppelgänger online) and then spoke at Austin Baptist Church for the first session of the Lifelong Love marriage conference. The room was full, with a lot of energy, and some encouraging conversations about how the books have impacted people. It felt like a great start to the year, coming off seeing my parents.
I had two pretty meaningful dreams on two successive nights about my dad that I don’t feel free to share, but dreams are one of the ways God can get around my overly busy mind. I’m not into “interpreting” dreams—when God has something for me to know, the understanding comes with the dream. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s clear.
On Saturday I did two more sessions at Austin Baptist Church and got a call during one of them from my oldest daughter. I of course couldn’t take it but Lisa told me she was calling to ask if I would officiate at her wedding this September and walk her down the aisle, and was it possible to do both? That put me on a spiritual high that any dad can imagine.
We went out to lunch with Jonathan and Bethany Spencer (Jonathan’s the senior pastor at ABC) and Matt and Adrian, another staff couple, and then I touched base with a pastor from the Houston area for about an hour-long phone call. Ken Werlein and I go way back. I used to speak at his church over the summers before I was hired at Second Baptist. We’ve seen our kids grow and I love his company, so we talked about church, and our families, and then he prayed for me, ending by praying for my dad. During that prayer God dropped the thought into my mind, “Gary, he’s already here,” referring to my dad. Just as Ken and I hung up, I got a call from a family member telling me my dad had passed in the previous hour.
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