How has your heart been hardened and then broken by God's grace?

My two minute sermon testimony at Mt. Carmel Church Service...

I was about the age of 15 or 16 when I started to realize that the world was not a bubble so perfectly shaped around me. I had been sheltered most of my life through the storm of divorce and sickness. But that roof had finally blown away. My heart was hardened.

I remember I would pray through tears at night to a God that I didn't really understand for things like...more ice cream after dinner, and A on a test that I didn't study for, for my parents to be happy, and for my dad to get better...a miracle if you will. You see, my dad was sick.

Then I started to realize my dad as himself. He was always smiling, always encouraging, still teaching me new things, playing a heated game of chess and sometimes letting me win, head buried in text books and scientific magazines, laughing at jokes and memories from when I was a child, like paramecia and runny noses. He always told me everything was okay. And I believed him.

Now let me tell you about my father. He had cancer when I was two years old. He went through radiation treatment which left him cancer free, but with terrible side effects. He had minimal eye-sight, loss of hearing, loss of equilibrium, skin disorders, hardened neck muscles (can you imagine not being able to turn your neck?), loss of saliva glands, and a stomach tube...and later on a trach tube. Yet he was one of the most loving people that I know. He spoke of a God and of unconditional love. And God's grace flowed through my father and showed itself to me.

My father passed away on August 17, 2007. But I had no doubt that I was loved and will always be. Something I didn't realize until recently is that I did get that miracle that I prayed so fervently for as a child. I had always expected my miracle to be a full healing of my father, but God works in other ways. The doctors had given him five years to live after he was diagnosed. Instead, he lived for over twenty years and I had him in my life growing up. He was sick since I remember yes, but I can't imagine my life without my dad in it. He's been such a big part of it. Thank you God.