that song is on repeat as i type this post. i just picked up the new billy corgan disk with a very spacey and moving version of the song on it. i sang the chorus of it all afternoon b/c it seemed so familiar to me and i later found out that the beegees actually performed it first, in the 70s or whenever. i really appreciate it. i'm in this strange trance as i listen to even now. it seems like there's a conversation going on within the song itself that is very relevant to me at this time.
me being a man. god being himself. life being what it is. i relate to the verses of this song b/c i feel like my prayers throughout this last year of my life have been just that; weighing and balancing things. telling god that he'd better be what he promises to be in the bible, basically. reminding him that if he's not exactly everything to me, then i'm f-ed. i'll even go so far as to say that my prayers have been a little bossy. i don't think i was so much trusting god and telling him that i trusted him with things as i was giving him his list of OPTIONAL "things to do". it leaves an awful taste in my mouth now that i think about it.
and it took about 3 years of molding and a 45 minute conversation with a dear friend for me to see such things. to see that god is himself and that he just wants us close to him. he wants faithfulness. he wants intimate offering (of ourselves). he wants honesty and devotion. it is a relationship, after all.
it was about 3 years ago that my dad went in for a doctor's appointment for severe back problems he was having and got news that he'd had cancer of the colon that had spread a little to his liver and lungs. a doctor once said to him that he literally had about 6 months to a year... to be alive. he decided that god had the final say in that. he went in for chemo treatments since then and trusted god with his healing/recovery and so did we as his family. earlier this year, my dad's body stopped reacting to the treatments and decided to break from them for a while. over time there were complications with his liver and he had to go back in for a some procedures on his abdomen. by late may of this year, he'd lost a lot of weight and energy.
i went home last month to find my older, now married, sisiter at home from her new life in kennesaw, ga. to assist my folks around the house and such. my dad had been put on hospice care, an oxygen tank, a mini-i.v. pouch and later a catheter to help him perform simple functions. something in my parents' characters have always kept me from ever thinking that either of them should be at all weak or a least bit human, for that matter, until i had to help my dad walk around the house and move his limbs again. in that week, my older sister, ni'ger, my younger brother, kelsey, and i got to sit in our yard and just talk. we talked about my dad's condition and what we thought about what. my sister said things big sister's are supposed to say (but meant them) about being "in god's hands" and what not. but what got me was what my younger brother said in response. he took my lines. he said the things that i was supposed to be saying to him, as a christian of close to 10 years, and older sibling. he said them clearly and with belief that god was actally good. this gave me comfort.
but he got weaker.
my father, guy marcus jenkins, died on the 28th of june. his 52nd birthday would have been that saturday on the 2nd of july. he and my mom would have celebrated their 29th anniversary at a nearby red lobster and the charleston battery on the 3rd (his wake). he was buried on the 4th.
most people have famous quotes they remember they're loved ones saying to them before they'd died and they hide them in their hearts. i honestly don't recall many of the "sermons" my dad preached to me while he was alive and i sadly remember trying to ignore them. but i especially remember and still picture him telling me that he loved me. every phone call and every conversation, no matter how short or vague on my part, was seasoned with "i love you, son." and he, indeed, loved god.
and i believed him.
at a strange pace, i have felt a sense of quiet comfort and slow embracing from jesus himself. i haven't given god any orders as of late in how to take care of me. he's just kind of doing it the way he does it. i feel like i'm being scraped; like an experienced painter does an old wall of an abandoned house before the new coat and remodeling. my friend megyn who reminded me that god just wants us to actually trust him and not just talk to him, shared a story of how she had to dig up weeds in south africa this summer to plant a new garden. i am at least that much.
i think you want to be too.
a friend i spoke with today about this stuff gave me a verse from the bible she'd recieved just earlier in the day:
May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father, who loved us...
comfort your hearts and give you strength
in every good thing you do and say. 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
i think i've been comforted so far. and i think i'm mourning now. the bible says this is also good.
