FATHER'S DAY 2006 - A PERSONAL NOTE FROM WENDY
A huge and heartfelt thank you to all those who pray for Rory and I, and for the love and support we have received during our recent family bereavement. For those who have not heard, my beautiful father, Doc Koefman, passed away in April, at the age of 91 and as its Father’s Day soon, I’d like to share with you how it happened...
Having just moved back to the UK, we had been living out of suitcases for many weeks, but during this nomadic time, I was able to spend a tremendous amount of really precious and memorable time with my dad.
We had just moved into our new house (Praise the Lord!) and had only been there two days. Rory had just left for the Worldwide Celebration of the Feast of Passover in Jerusalem and I was unpacking what seemed to be hundreds of boxes, when as I looked out into the fields, I saw in my spirit, angels waving huge banners with daddy’s name on.
They were celebrating with such amazing joy that I thought “Oh no, it looks like they’re preparing to take daddy home.” He had been sick again, but because he was so strong, I thought it would be in a few weeks or months.
I phoned daddy and he had had a really bad day and could hardly talk. I was sobbing because I felt I had to tell him... “It’s alright to go to be with God, I’ll see you in Heaven.” Then as feeble as he was, he said his last words to me... “I love you, my darling.”
The next day, Thursday 13 April, I prayed and prayed for him. We had no phones in the house yet and my USA one wasn’t working.
I could only phone out. At 20.40 I got an e-mail from my mum saying “Please phone” and somehow I knew daddy had gone.
His best friend, the Anglican Canon from next door, who was also 91, had gone over to visit that night (which he never does, just visits in the day) to watch the Seder Meal live from Jerusalem. He prayed the Lord’s Prayer with daddy (his favourite prayer along with Psalm 23) and halfway through, daddy opened his eyes, wide as could be, and passed away from this life, right during the Seder.
The amazing thing was that daddy was born a Jew, a son of Abraham, and his greatest desire was to be buried in Israel near Capernaum, his favourite place on earth – and so at the exact time that GOD TV was broadcasting the Passover Meal from Jerusalem, he crossed into glory. There could have been nothing more fitting.
For any of you who have read my book, ‘The Journal of the Unknown Prophet’, you will truly understand when I say that because of my earthly father’s great and precious love for me, it was so easy for me to fall in love with the Father of Glory, our wonderful Heavenly Father.
I was so wonderfully blessed, for I had the most beautiful father I could ever have dreamed of. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for loaning him to me for this time on earth. I know that some of you reading were blessed like me, but as I was writing, I felt that the Lord say that there are many, many of you who never knew what it was like to have a father who said to you so often – “I love you, my darling.”
And the Lord said that there are many of you who never even knew the love of a father and who have struggled to know the love of your Heavenly Father because you had no earthly father.
“There are those of you,” says the Lord, “who were even abused by your father – not just sexually but emotionally and verbally and your heart is still scarred from these experiences.
But My child,” says the Lord God of Hosts, “My beloved child, you who I knew from before your conception, you who I knew before the beginning of time, you who I designed – each part of your body, I knew your frame – how intricately you were formed, your soul, your emotions and your mind...
“Beloved child, even though your earthly father did not take you up, I your Heavenly Father take you up. Even though your earthly father did not take up your cause, I your Heavenly Father now take up your cause.
Even though your earthly father did not embrace you nor look into the depth of your soul, so that you would know that you were truly loved, so even this day My child, I embrace you and I look deep into your soul, beyond all your failures and omissions...
“I look beyond all your human frailties and your shortcomings, beyond all your self hatred and your rejections, for I see your heart – as the pearl of great price for which I sent My son to die and as you put your hand in Mine and you come away with Me, beloved and you look into My face and you behold My glory...
“Let the tears start to flow, for beautiful child, it is I, the One who loves you and as the tears flow, beloved – tears of healing, tears of grief, tears of lost days, tears of misunderstanding – beloved, I would have that you forgive that one, that father who rejected you, for he knew not what he did.
“Forgive the father who abused you, for he knew well what he did, but he was so bound with his own lusts, angers and rejections that he could not break free. Forgive the father who was absent and who never held you, for beloved, he knew not what he missed – forgive the father whose tongue was cruel to you, for he knew not kindness himself as a child.
“And beloved, as you forgive, even this day, so I, the Lord God of Israel, the Father for whom fatherhood is named, I break the yoke off your back. I break the bondages that have weighed you down and enslaved you even these many, many years.
“I break the rejection and the self hatred that has crippled your life, that has kept you from your call and your destiny in Me, and now, My child, am I not the Lifter of your head – lift your head beloved and know that you are all beautiful in Me, there is no flaw in you.
“And as you take My hand and as you lift your head to the King of Glory, know that you now enter a new season, a new place in Me – a season of joy and of peace – a season where those things that previously beset you will fall away – a season of preparation for your calling and your destiny in Me.
“So rejoice My child, rejoice and be exceedingly glad My child, for the King of Glory is your Father!”
