{"id":1002,"date":"2011-05-23T14:43:06","date_gmt":"2011-05-23T19:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1002"},"modified":"2011-05-23T14:43:06","modified_gmt":"2011-05-23T19:43:06","slug":"in-your-loving-arms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1002","title":{"rendered":"In Your Loving Arms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Monday Father!<\/p>\n

Today Father, my heart grieves for the mother of one of Your Children who lost his battle with cancer yesterday, and has left us to join You in Your Kingdom.\u00a0 His earthly trials are over Lord, and he triumphs in Your Presence, and for that my heart rejoices.\u00a0 His mother, family and friends however have a piece missing from their lives that will mourn his passing nonetheless.\u00a0 I pray for Your Healing and Comfort to all those missing Dorian\u2019s light today Father, and ask that You keep them in Your Loving Arms so they may know the joy he\u2019s experiencing with You now.<\/p>\n

Searching for words of comfort Lord, I came across a poetic prayer written by Edgar A. Guest that touched my heart so deeply that I wanted to share it here:<\/p>\n

A Child of Mine by Edgar A. Guest<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI’ll lend you for a little while
\nA child of mine,\u201d God said,
\n\u201cFor you to have the while he lives,
\nAnd mourn for when he’s dead.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It may be six or seven years
\nOr twenty-two or three;
\nBut will you ’till I call him back
\nTake care of him for me?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

He’ll bring his charms to gladden you
\nAnd, should his stay be brief,
\nYou’ll have his lovely memories
\nAs a solace for your grief.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I cannot promise he will stay,
\nSince all from earth return;
\nBut there are lessons taught below
\nI want this child to learn.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve looked the whole world over
\nIn search for teachers true;
\nAnd from the throngs that crowd life’s land,
\nI have chosen you.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, will you give him all your love
\nNor think the labor vain?
\nNor hate me when I come to take
\nThis lent child back again?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I fancied that I heard them say:
\n\u201cDear Lord, Thy will be done.
\nFor all the joys Thy child will bring
\nThe risk of grief we’ll run.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We’ll shower him with tenderness,
\nWe’ll love him while we may.
\nAnd for the happiness we’ve known
\nForever grateful stay.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But should Thy angel call for him
\nMuch sooner than we’ve planned,
\nWe’ll brave the bitter grief that comes
\nAnd try to understand.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\n

P.S. For those who haven\u2019t been following Dorian\u2019s struggle, his mother has a page at CaringBridge.org which can be found here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Monday Father! Today Father, my heart grieves for the mother of one of Your Children who lost his battle with cancer yesterday, and has left us to join You in Your Kingdom.\u00a0 His earthly trials are over Lord, and he triumphs in Your Presence, and for that my heart rejoices.\u00a0 His mother, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1263,526,107,770,286,132,27,915,236,487,1262,4,939,173,844,228,966,427,1261,1260,79,444,5,140,222,345,78,104,389,133,96,479,490,304,230,1259,1258,16,1264,217,205,41,145,117,469,777,476,175,250,789,697,791,504,348,723],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-a-child-of-mine","tag-cancer","tag-care","tag-caring","tag-child","tag-children","tag-comfort","tag-dear-lord","tag-death","tag-earth","tag-edgar-a-guest","tag-family","tag-family-and-friends","tag-father","tag-follow","tag-friend","tag-god","tag-grateful","tag-grief","tag-grieves","tag-happiness","tag-happy","tag-healing","tag-heart","tag-joy","tag-learn","tag-life","tag-light","tag-lost","tag-love","tag-loving","tag-loving-arms","tag-memories","tag-monday","tag-mother","tag-mourn","tag-passing","tag-plan","tag-poem","tag-pray","tag-prayer","tag-presence","tag-risk","tag-son","tag-sons","tag-struggle","tag-teach","tag-teacher","tag-touch","tag-trials","tag-understand","tag-whole","tag-will","tag-word","tag-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-ga","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1005,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/1005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}