A visit with my Dad...

My Mom came and picked him up at Home Depot on Saturday night and said she'd bring him back to our house after I got out of work, but that they needed time to talk and put the past in the past. I got out at 10:30 and she never dropped him off til close to midnight. I had to work on Sunday and my supervisor wound up letting me come in late so that I could spend a little more time with him. We went to church in the morning together...that's the first time that's happened in quite awhile (with my Dad wiht us anyway) and then I took him by our new house to walk through it. We went out for lunch at Fire Mountain and then took some family pictures. We went out to the lake for awhile, but it was just too hot unless we had our feet in the water...so we came back to our house for awhile until I had to go to work. Dad went to Mom's to spend the rest of the day with them and then after I got home from work, they came by the house to pick me up so that we could bring him back to the truck. But, it's looking like they really may get back together at some point soon, although they are starting out slow. There's some things that I need to find out on my end too if he winds up staying with me for the first little while. I may just wind up trying to find him a really cheap place to stay too since he's only in a couple nights every 3-4 weeks. We'll just see what the plan works out to be I guess. Lots of prayers have been answered and some are in the process of being answered and it was a good visit with him. Very different from the rest....

We also had a few things that told us that Mother Mary was really interceding in prayer for us. It's odd that I couldn't shake the motorcycle incident last week and then when I told my Mom she said that she had just talked with my Dad about that. And my Dad said that he had tried to rescue a dying rose bush and was told that it more than likely wouldn't bloom, he tried anyway and on the morning that he was coming here the bush bloomed a beautiful rose and he felt like he was given a sign that he belonged back here. He spent most of Saturday evening with my Mom and we talked for a bit once he got back here before we went to bed.

Sunday morning, we were all able to go to Mass together. Mom opened up her prayer book in Mass and a beautiful red vibrant rose petal was in there and she showed it to me. We've had some blessed rose petals for a few years...she knew it was in there, just didn't know that it was in that specific spot and we couldn't get over how vibrant and bright it looked with how old it was. When we left for lunch, I got into the car (my Dad was smoking and I can't stand that smell)...yet when I got into the car I was hit with a beautiful scent of roses. I immediately said that I smelled roses...nobody else could smell them. It only lasted for a couple of minutes, but I knew she was at work in prayer. I couldn't smell the cigarette smoke or anything else, but the roses. When I said good-bye to go to work that afternoon, I got into the car and said some prayers about bringing my family back together again, and I smelled the roses again briefly...strong but brief. It made me smile. I got to work and my friend A came up to me and asked me if my Dad was still here. I told him that he was leaving tonight after I got out of work. He knows that we don't see him much and that we all struggle with that. God has used him so many times to speak to me...so many times things will be going on that A has no idea about...and he'll say something that has to do with my prayers or something that I'm struggling with and it's kinda freaky when it happens, but it gives me an answer to prayer most of the time. Anyway, A told me that he just felt led to tell me that God works in mysterious ways and timing sometimes, but that God would bring him home so that we can enjoy him more. Once I got home from work, I shared that with my Mom and when we went to drive my Dad back to the truck so that he could go to where he needed to unload, we were able to say a beautiful family prayer.

My Dad wants to come home, my Mom wants him to come home...there's still a few things that need to be dealt with and figured out first...but they're going to start out slow and go back to dating and rebuilding their relationship. It felt like old times to have him here and this visit was so totally different than the others. It was good and I just wanted to say thank you, Mother Mary, for praying for our family all this time and knowing what our hearts wanted. We can see our prayers being answered now. Abba, thank You for the visit this weekend and for the healing and the peace that you are bringing to our family.