Reflection (my father's life)

(forgiven, artist: Thomas Blackshear)

Psalm 130

¹ Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;

² O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

³ If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

⁴ But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.

⁵ I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.

⁶ My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

⁷ O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.

⁸ He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

This picture struck a chord in my heart from the first.

The man being held up has a striking resemblance to my father.

(dad, Ike and brother, Christopher: probably 20 years ago)

Not only does this picture resemble my father, the verse the artist attached to it resembles his life.

³ If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

⁴ But with you there is forgiveness;

Dad was a poor father. In my eyes the saving grace was that he knew. It wasn’t until after he died, I gained perspective and matured enough to completely forgive.

How amazing that we serve a God with whom forgiveness is instant and permanent.

Prone to holding grudges that I don’t realize I’m holding until I get upset, this kind of Godly forgiveness sometimes seems unobtainable.

I would like to share a bit of my father’s ‘story’.

He was born to a large family. He was abused. He was poor. He got messed up.

At seventeen while on a date with a girl in the woods (it is unknown if he was drunk or high) he lost his temper and stabbed her to death. After killing her he tried to hide her body in the river a ran. Eventually, family convinced him to turn himself into the police. During his stay in jail he and five others escaped using bed sheets (like in the movies). Caught again he was then sentenced to prison where he spent the next ten years. Not knowing what his sentence was I can’t say how early he was released. My GUESS is that because he was a minor, and back then minors were not prosecuted as adults that his sentence was not life.

I believe that who he was as my father is a result of being confined in prison for years. I’ve been told that who my father was in my adolescence is not who is was when my mother met him after he was release from prison.

I’m told he was engaging, dynamic, funny ect…I do not remember anything before the age of 10 so other than pictures I do not have those kind of memories. I cringe when I hear someone in a restaurant that reminds me of him.

In prison he found Jesus. I choose to believe until the end he was saved and forgiven. I choose to believe that though he continued to make mistakes we serve a God who did not give up on him.

He then married my mom. They eloped.

Had a daughter and a son,

and lived happily ever after

I saw him verbally abuse my mother, and experienced it myself. He was addicted to pain medication. He looked at porn on the internet. He was short tempered. He did not hold a job for the last 10-15 years of his life. He smoked. He spent money poorly. He was depressed. He was cocky. He was broken in ALOT of ways.

His death (a morphine overdose due to a recent back surgery) was ruled an accident but something inside of me will never be completely 100% sure that he did not commit suicide.

However,

He gave me a childhood grounded in faith. He made me a lot of who I am (the good and the bad). Ultimately I like who I am. I have been told many times, by my mother, it is because ‘you are a Best’. He gave me depression, that I will continue to look at as a blessing. He gave me my addictive personality traits (gotta have a passion!) By his life I learned how to not let those addictions OVERTAKE and ruin my life. He gave me my intelligence. He gave me my artistic ability. Through him I learned the ways I would not let a man treat me, and how to stand up for myself.

Most importantly he loved me, even when I could not/ would not let him.

My father is the man in the picture. My father is the verse:

³ If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

⁴ But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.