Call on Me

I recently connected someone I had never met. I received a friend request and  approved it thinking it was someone I knew from school. A day later, I received an email. It was an apology from my new “friend”. She had mistaken me for a person who looks like me. After a few cordial emails, it turned out that we knew the same people.

I noticed her profile picture. The picture showed a well defined man sitting next to her. He was aged and he had a smile on his face. I could only imagine he was absolutely proud to be next to her. She said the gentleman was her father. Her only other pictures were of them and her two dogs. Her mother had passed away some years ago, and she and her dad became inseparable since her death. Not only was this man her father, but he was her pastor and her best friend. She was his right hand woman and he was her rock. She then revealed that the pictures were taken a short time before his untimely death. I was speechless. What can you really say to anyone that lost a loved one? In a vain attempt to offer my condolences I said I was sorry.

This man gave everything for God including his life. Her father was a pastor of a thriving church. It was a Sunday and he went to pray for someone who was on their deathbed. After he prayed, he went to the church to fulfill the role of shepherd to his flock. A few days later, he contracted the sickness of the person he had just prayed for and ultimately passed away. I asked when he passed away and I was told less than a month ago.

My heart sank for her and I quietly prayed. Questions ran through my mind. Why would God allow a man such as this to pass away doing His work? It is a question I am sure I will never know the answer to.

She said it was a habit for her to call her father when she passed his home on her way to work. It was the day after the funeral and she found herself passing his home. Out of habit, she picked up the cell phone to call her father when it hit her; she would no longer hear his voice. He would never call her again to say, “I love you mija.”

It was during this exact moment God spoke to her. He told her that she could always call on Him. She said she now talks to God when she passes her father’s home on her way to work. I smiled when she said she would see her mom and dad again, that they are now reunited in Heaven.

God wants to be in our lives. At times we classify God as Untouchable, Unreachable, and Unknowable. This is the complete opposite. I was blown away by her tremendous faith in God. Here, a young woman lost her father and she tells me that she knows everything is going to be OK. How dare I complain in my situation that God is not doing what I want him to do in the time I want him to do it? God is doing something even though I, like her, may not know exactly why things happen. Everything happens for a reason, but through her amazing testament of faith, I see that God is interested in each of our lives. When we are to the point where we can’t call on anyone else, He is always whispering, “Call on Me.”

God Bless,
EJ Pena