Last Saturday, my parents decided to throw a surprise graduation party for my little brother (Edward) and his bestfriend (Dominic). It was very small… only my family and Dom’s mom.
Earlier that day I had come home from a camping trip with the CFCs and some of the youth and without even changing, I flopped onto my bed and passed out. When I woke up, my mom told me that Father Tim was there for dinner and was looking for me. I became nervous, for Father Tim was the priest of a large parish here in Ottawa and although I met him a few times before, I felt unprepared to have him at our small house. I was unsure what points of conversation to touch on or which questions I should pose. Father Tim is blind, so I didn’t have to straighten my skirt or fix my hair, but I felt that I had to do that internally… if that makes sense?
To my absolute surprise, I took my seat next to father at the table and our conversation was so simple and free-flowing. He asked me about my camping trip, and we started talking about super hero movies (Marvel and DC; I’m a huge fan and so is he!), his band when he was younger, what his schedule looks like on most days, the population I work with and want to work with (criminalized women, women with addictions, adults with mental illness and at-risk youth)… We fluttered from topic to topic with great ease. With a huge smile father told me he loved the “Kare-Kare,” and he held up his Mountain Dew and exclaimed that he and Andy (my youngest brother) were doing a challenge; to try and drink each flavour of Mountain Dew. At the end of the evening he cheerfully called my little brother over and told him that they had one more challenge… to mix all of the Mountain Dews together and drink it! I watched in awe and amazement as this man of faith I watched from my small seat at church, lift up a glowing pink concoction of soda and drink it as he laughed.
I have a huge smile on my face as I write this here.
God, much like Father Tim, is completely and totally relatable. We can talk to Him about action movies, describe the countless mosquito bites we got during our camping trip, tell him stories about how quickly the youth are growing (God, you need to see them!). We don’t need to limit our conversations with God to only the things we think God wants to talk about or what we think are relevant to Him. He knows what it’s like to hurt, to laugh at jokes, to taste good food, to be tempted.. He is a God who, after all, came down and became one of us. If that’s not a father trying to relate to his children, I don’t know what is!
Praise God! 🙂