By Judy Villanueva

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  (1John 7-8)

When I was little, my dad promised my siblings and me that he would live to be one hundred years old.  I look back on this now and wonder if this was such a good idea since he had no control over the hour of his death but, he said it and we believed it.  My dad also said, and still says,  “I love you.”  Pause.  “Forever and ever!”  We do the same, and when we part, we press our cheeks together and say, “Eeee-Eeee.”  As I write this, my dad lays at home in hospice care, gently (and sometimes not so gently) letting go of this life and preparing for the new life that awaits him.  We, too, are in the throws of preparing — saying our goodbyes and struggling to accept and surrender to the loss of a man who has shown us what it looks like to love well.  I might even go as far to say that the power of my dad’s love led me to Christ, even though he was a stubborn agnostic.

There is no doubt in my mind that love has power, and I mean that with all the intensity I can muster.  The love of God is a force!  It holds and heals us.  It imparts life and touches a soul-place in us that nothing else can touch.  Think of the last time LOVE reached out and touched you, or the last time love flowed through you to touch another.  It is not benign!  Giving and receiving love changes us, and always for the better because…

Love cries out with a message from Heaven!  

It tells us that we are known and connects us to the reality that we are loved by God.  Do you know that you are loved by God?  This is the truth that pours pure joy over our heads and empowers us to live life to the full.  This is the reality that I believe God wants to make manifest in and through our lives.  

It’s unlikely that my dad will make it to his 90th birthday.  He is ten years shy of keeping his promise, but we won’t hold that against him because, while he may not have the power to live to be one hundred, he’s always had the power to love and that he has done generously for decades!  Did I forget to tell you that he finally gave his life to Christ 3 months ago?!  Knowing that when he leaves our embraces he will be received by the most faithful arms of God, is absolutely the most precious gift I can imagine!  I recently found the letter my dad wrote to me on my eighteenth birthday and, at the risk of being sentimental, I’d like to say back to him what he said me so many years ago. 

“Now, your time is here.  Fly, my love, and drink in all the happiness and Love that waits for you” — in Heaven. 

I love you, dad…forever and ever.  Eeee-Eeee!  

“Thank you, Father God, for the dad you gave me and for all the ways his love led me to you.  Surround him with your angels now and give him the cheek hug of his life!  Amen.”  

Worship