God Doesn't Look for the Beautiful

We all have days when we feel like God doesn’t see us, doesn’t hear our prayers, doesn’t even care. Those days when your spouse is unhappy and just wants to fight. Those pressure-cooker deadlines at work when something goes wrong and your boss gives you ‘the look’. The phases of your children when they hate you. The family event where a loved one does something so uncharacteristic that everyone is wounded by it. The co-worker that always seems to have it together, but you struggle.

In 2018 I became a full-time caregiver to my dad. All my life, he was the smartest man I've ever known. As children, he would tell us 'made-up stories' at dinner time that would have us laughing hysterically. Stories about Wild Bill Hickock and a pirate named Blackbeard had all six of us howling in laughter. As children, we didn't quite understand his profession, and it wasn't important. However, my dad was extremely wise and spent his career in the difficult field of determining the reason for death. He was a Medical Examiner.

I am certain that his heart broke when he had to perform autopsies on babies and children. The moral fortitude to do that job every day must have weighed heavily on his spirit. Knowing the utter immorality and hatred that drove people to kill others was something he had to deal with each day and work with homicide investigators to help solve the crimes.

My dad was an avid reader and over the course of 60+ years, my parents had amassed a library of thousands of books. The topics ranged from art and history to all but a few of the original National Geographic magazines. The books ranged from leather bound and gold engraved to slick covers that covered so many topics I can't remember them all.

I moved to Las Vegas in February 2018 after I was laid off when my company was acquired. My mother had been on my case about moving 'back home', but the truth is that I hated the desert and never wanted to live there. I put everything I owned on a 22' rental truck and drove it from Houston to Las Vegas, and put it in storage. I thought storage would be temporary, but that's not what happened.

I moved into one of the bedrooms in my parents' house and began a job search. I didn't think it would take very long, but I was wrong. One week after I moved in, somehow, my dad became my responsibility. He was still mobile at the time and still quite vocal, but Alzheimer's was wearing him down.

My mother was more than happy to be relieved of the responsibility, but she told my siblings and anyone else that would listen, that I "took over." I didn't want to be there. I didn't want the job, and I didn't expect to be in a Catch-22. But I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't.

From my early 20s, I had been involved with the church, and when I really, for the first time, understood who Jesus was and what he did for all humanity - I fell in love with him. I developed a deep faith and led many people to Him and to his love.

By May 2018, my dad required full-time attention. His mobility had slowed, and he was often unsteady on his feet. I had spent the spring working on the property, 'the ranch,' to tear down old fencing and do other very physical work that had been overlooked for years. At that point, I had to stop all outside work and stay with my dad from the time he got out of bed until he went back to bed in the evening.

As 2018 was replaced by 2019, my mom and I were at odds. She didn't want to take care of my dad but was also jealous of what she perceived to be 'attention,' and I could not win. I wasn't just Dad's caregiver; somehow, I became the full-time cook. I worked every day from 6 AM to 10 PM. I did not get weekends off. I did not get paid holidays.

In December 2019, I became very ill and spent a week locked in my bedroom because I did not want my parents to get whatever illness I had. By January the media was talking about a Coronavirus that may have originated in China. I had all the symptoms.

I felt alone, unappreciated, uncared for, physically and mentally exhausted, and spiritually forsaken. There were days that I cried out to God. I wanted to know where he was, and why he had forgotten me. I demanded for him to recognize who I was, where I was, and that I was alone. I was in a spiritual desolation that is hard to describe. It was dry, empty, devoid of love, devoid of anyone that really gave a damn about what I was going through. I wanted out!

I was out of money, I was out of patience, and I was frustrated beyond measure. I applied for hundreds of local jobs and even went on a few interviews. I know that I went into those interviews fully prepared and fully fried. I looked tired and felt exhausted, but every day, I got up and did it all over again. I never wondered why there was no job offer, but I couldn't get anyone in my family to help. Except for one.

My oldest sister sent me a plane ticket and I flew up to visit with her for a few days in Oregon. That was the only reprieve I had in two years. Well, there was one other, but it was a family trip that became my responsibility to plan. I chose a beautiful 10-bedroom, 6-bath home with two pools and a lot of other amenities in St. George, Utah. I went on that vacation and my siblings figured out how to care for my dad for six days while I was gone.

But the spiritual desert continued and I could not snap out of it. I could not understand WHY God allowed me to move to Vegas, WHY I couldn't get a job, WHY I was living in my parent's home with a woman who hated me. I knew one thing, and that was I was financially trapped. I couldn't leave because I had nowhere to go. My dad would have been put in an assisted living center and would have died soon after.

I was trapped, and everyone knew it.

My dad was hospitalized the day before my birthday for vomiting blood. The hospital told us that he had developed a bleed in his stomach and there was nothing they could do for him. They told us that he would need to go into hospice - at home. They also told us that if it became too much for us, he could have his final days of hospice in an institution.

I was exhausted and tried to convince myself that my Dad was not dying. I was wrong. My Dad passed away at home on June 26, 2020. I fought for him every day for 2+ years, and I didn't know how to let him go.

Four years later, this still brings tears to my eyes. And I miss him.

I moved to Wisconsin in September 2020 for a job that would bring me closer to my son, who was already living there. I left everything in storage and drove to Wisconsin alone. I had a lot of time to think, pray, and reconnect with God.

I knew that God had chosen me to take care of my dad, and I knew that he had set me free to live the next part of my life that would bring a beautiful grandson who just happens to be a little bit like my dad.

The prayers that seem to fall on deaf ears. The prayers that you think will never be answered. The prayers for your spouse. You aren’t trying to change him, you are waiting for him to seek God for change and it seems so far off, and it seems impossible. The prayers for your child deployed to a war zone, hoping he comes back in one piece. Just hoping he comes back at all.

The battles you have with your spouse when they demand respect but never return it. The marital spats over nothing and you don’t know how they started. The emotional scars left by careless words and senseless actions.

Whatever is happening in your life at this moment, God sees the ugliness. He feels your pain. He lost friends to death and he lost friends to betrayal. He understands where you are right now. He knows the feeling of being mocked, bullied and put on display.

He doesn’t look for the beautiful. He looks for the broken hearted, the weary and the oppressed and he wants to make a difference in your life.

Don’t give up on your prayers. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)