I was in a prayer session about five years ago.  We prayed
through many situations relating to my relationship with my
father.  Of course, most of you know he died when I was only 11
years old.  How could I be so well connected, so bonded, with my
father at such a young age?  My father was my hero.  More than
that, he was, sort of speak, my Biblical hero.  I often would
awaken at 5 to 5 in the morning and stumble downstairs to get in
bed with my folks.  At that hour of the morning, although dad left
for work around 6 o'clock, he was already up.  The bright kitchen
lights would be on, and I would blink from their harshness as I
passed through the kitchen on my way to the bedroom of my parents.
I never failed to see what dad was doing, however, at that early
hour.  He always got up a couple of hours before work in order to
study the Scriptures and to pray.  I would see his Bible, an
opened notebook for his notes, various colored pens and pencils,
and sometime other books he would be using to look up other
Biblical information all laying opened and scattered across the
surface of the kitchen table.  I knew, without ever being told,
that God, and the Bible, were the most important things in my
father's life.

     During this prayer session several years ago, to which I
began to make reference, the prayer session became very painful.
I hadn't been allowed to see my father during the last three weeks
of his life.  Children, in those days, weren't allowed to go to
the hospital rooms of adults and not even if it were their
parents.  So my father died without me ever once being allowed to
see him.  "It's just the way it was back then and I would have to
live with it.  Well, over the years, the pain remained.  I felt
cheated, misunderstood, and broken for some reason.  "Why did you
allow this to happen, Lord?" was in my thoughts but I never knew
it, nor spoke of it to anyone, because I didn't know it was there.
These old feelings, locked into old forty year old memories from
wounded and bruised emotions had never gone away.  They were
coming out now, rushing out, and the little boy inside was still
hurting and fearful and crying.

     As we prayed, I felt as if I were in that hospital room I had
been denied forty years earlier.  I felt my mom in the room, my
dad laying in the hospital bed, and Jesus standing near.  The Lord
said your dad had things he wanted you to know before he died but
he couldn't speak due to the coma.  I was allowed to hear and feel
the love and concern my father had for me.  He made it clear the
Lord would take care of me.  "He is your Father now," was clearly
spoken into my thoughts.  This was totally amazing to me as a
child and a grown man at the same time.  I heard the Lord say,
"I'm your Father now."  Isaiah 9:6 suddenly jumped into my
thoughts and made perfect spiritual sense to me for the first time
in my life.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the
government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be
called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting
Father, The Prince of Peace.

     I have no problem now, since I experienced the reality of
Scripture, calling Jesus my Father because He now is.