Prayers and Prescriptions

The evening my father passed away I found myself glued to the seat of his veterinary truck. A familiar smell of horse manure, ointment, and dust filled the space around me bringing forth a crushing wave of emotions I was not prepared for. The sound resonating off the windshield was the wailing of my soul as my tears poured out onto the fabric of his seat. The pain was like none I had ever known. I clenched the steering wheel where his hands once grasped and through the blur of tear filled eyes I peered onto the console only to find his “to-do” notebook. My head was spinning, searching for anything that would give me a snapshot of his final days. My fingers fumbled through the pages of his messy, chicken-scratch notes describing horses to treat and invoices to be made. Then in the mist I found it, my first lifeline. The following prayer peered into the darkness of that moment and gave me a glimpse of my father’s ever present focus. These words are forever etched into my mind:

“It is an honor to be in the presence of Your Holy Spirit. Make my mind clean by sealing Your thoughts in my head. Your ways and Your direction are beyond my comprehension; so make me know them that I may serve You, oh Lord. Search my heart; I plead the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. Remove from me any thought, any desire, any act that is evil, any word or action that would cause damage to anyone. Lead me in the everlasting way. Lead me to knowledge that is heavenly. Lead me in the path that is righteous. Clear my way of any evil let it not pursue from behind or before. Keep my spirit eyes on the mark you have set for me. I pray for blessing on all the tasks you have put in my mind and heart. I pray for blessing upon my wife, my children, my grandchildren, and all those in my family. For I realize that they all are a gift from you. Make me into the person they need to see. My example make it pure and without prejudice. I pray my family will know more of you, oh Lord, through my example. Release to them through me the spiritual insight you have blessed into my soul. When I leave this earth, oh Lord, let there be no jobs undone.”

His final sentence stabbed me like a knife in that moment creating a whirlwind of questions. Could there really be no more jobs left for him to do, Lord? What about me, what about my girls, what about River of Hope, and all we were going to do together? It felt like a re-play of my dad’s very words after his father died unexpectedly. They had so many plans to run a horse operation together. Now here I sat in his work truck, questions swarming my mind, how am I going to go on without him? I could not imagine in that moment continuing the ministry I felt called to do with the very animals he had the greatest touch with-horses. God had provided the perfect trio in my father, the veterinarian, my sister, the marketing guru, and me the clinical, mental health professional. Now a vital force was gone. You see, I didn't just lose my dad that day, I lost my mentor, my confidant, & most importantly my spiritual hero. I felt so alone, lost in the sea of unknowns. I used to think it was such a cliché that pain was necessary in our lives; that was before I experienced the worst pain of my life. Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor, stated, in Man’s Search for Meaning, “…everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” He went on to say, “…in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.” We cannot stop life from happening. No one is exempt from pain and suffering, but we can choose our path while in the mist of it. We can choose who we become because of it. We are only defeated by our pain and circumstance if we allow it to rob us of the opportunity to grow beyond ourselves by keep us a prisoner in the chains of hopelessness.

Oh Lord, make me humble, make me steadfast, make me wiser, make me more compassionate, selfless, and giving through the circumstances of life no one would choose. I dare not want to ever meet the person I would be without the sculpting of pain’s knife. I choose to remain your servant, to pass on a legacy of hope and compassion as my father did, to take up my cross, and allow you to mold me into a greater witness for you through my pain. Use me for your glory and when I leave this earth, may there be no jobs left undone.

Lord, I pray this prayer journal will be a testament to thy good and faithful servant my father chose to be. I pray his legacy lives on in those who allow his prayers to inspire them to a live a life of compassion and service.

Lord, may the passion displayed on the pages of my father’s journal light the way for those he left behind and may his pen lead us to the truth of your word.

-Josie R. Muterspaw, (aka “Joe Bob”)