To Whom Shall I Go?

Four weeks. It’s been four weeks since I last saw my Dad and my big brother. Four weeks since an easter egg hunt in the backyard at my parent’s house. Four weeks since my brother held his son’s hands and cheered while he took wobbly steps toward my mom. Four weeks since my dad asked me to make him a cup of tea. Four weeks since we sat down to the last meal my brother would make for us.

Tomorrow it will be four weeks since I got the call from my mom. Four weeks since a man, under the influence of methamphetamine, drove a dump truck through a stop sign at the precise moment my dad and my big brother were driving home from work. Four weeks since that truck flipped onto their car, killing them both.

Four weeks since I prayed for them, for hours, not knowing they were already dead. Four weeks since I shook with rage and grief and tears. Four weeks since time split in half, one track in my mind continuing into the direction of how everything should be and the other track stuck in the nightmare of this reality that doesn’t feel real.

How am I doing? How am I doing? How am I doing?

That’s the question people keep asking, and I keep not knowing how to answer. I finally settled on, “hanging in there!” because it’s just vague enough that the other person doesn’t feel uncomfortable while also carrying the tiny seed of truth that I’m barely hanging on by a thread.

The thread is this one moment in the gospel of John that has been on repeat in my head. Jesus was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum and had just finished saying “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” And it says they talked among themselves about this being a “hard teaching,” and then many of them “turned back and no longer walked with him.”

Then there’s this moment when Jesus looks at the twelve disciples and says, “Do you want to go away as well?” and Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

He doesn’t say, “Lord, I totally understand this teaching and I think it’s a really great one and I’m definitely going to keep following you.” He doesn’t pretend to understand or even agree, but he says, “To whom shall we go?”

I rarely read the gospels and see myself in Peter. But this passage - right now - is something I am clinging to and saying to myself over and over and over.

I don’t understand. I am angry. So angry. I want to scream and smash things. I want the comfort of the Lord and yet he feels so absent, like a door slammed in my face the moment I need him the most. I don’t understand that either. I wish it weren’t so. I wish I could feel that peace that passes understanding. I wish I could pray. I wish I could hear the still small voice of God instead of this deafening silence.

But Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal life, and I have believed and I have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.

That’s all I have right now. May it be enough.

Dear Abigail | On Your Fourth Birthday

Dear Abigail,

Happy birthday my sweet girl, my little joy-bomb, the one who first called me Mom.

Your Daddy has taken to calling you Abigail The Wise. I thought it was cute, maybe something you will live up to. But my girl, when I pay attention I see that you are already, at the ripe old age of four, living into that name.

If you’ll allow me, I want to share a little snapshot of who you are today.

You still love strawberries more than anyone I know. You’re also a fan of blueberries, apples, mac & cheese, chocolate milk, and sprinkles on anything.

Your favorite song is Father by Sabaton, or “that cool song Daddy showed me” if you’re asking for it from the backseat.

You love to help me cook. You’ve made dozens of loaves of bread, helping me measure ingredients, stir. You know yeast helps the dough rise, and that it takes some time.

You’re the first to remind me to pray for God to heal a scrape or bruise, and you keep track of your skinned knees and almost always tell me, days later, that you want to thank Jesus for healing you.

You call me Mother - or, more accurately, “Mudder.” You still call your Daddy a mix of “Daddy,” “Dad,” and - his least favorite - “Josiah.”

You are fiercely protective of your sister. The two of you are inseparable. You come up with games for the two of you to play. For the past two weeks, you’ve been playing a game where she is a baby named “Sobelli” and you take care of her.

You love books. You bring me books to read to you any chance we get, and I’ll often find you sitting in the floor with two stacks of books on either side of you while you flip through the pages of each one. I can’t wait for the world of words to open up to you, for you to be able to read your favorite stories for yourself (Pete The Cat, Green Eggs and Ham, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and your National Geographic Volcano books.)

You really care about the way you look - your hair, your outfits, your shoes. Most mornings when you’re getting ready, you’ll stand in front of the mirror in your room and look at yourself from different angles and then declare, “I look adorable!” And you do. You always do. With your mismatched socks and your ponytails and your princess dresses - you are absolutely adorable.

One of the most fun things about how you’re growing up has been the way you help me get ready too. Sometimes you’ll help me choose between two different outfits (you always choose the dress.) You’re my little getting-ready encourager, telling me when my outfit looks “cute” or my hair looks “amazing.”

You love to sing and dance and act out scenes from your favorite movies. I love to hear you sing. I love to watch you dance. The freedom you bring to everything you do amazes and inspires me.

A few months ago we were talking about how we can pray to God to ask him anything. I asked if you wanted to ask God something, and of course you did. Your question was, “Does God like rhinos or giraffes better?” When the possibilities were endless, your first thought was to ask God to tell you something about himself.

I hope to be more like you. I hope for my prayers to look more like that, for the things I ask God to start, first and foremost, with “show me more of who you are.” Tell me if you like rhinos or giraffes better.

It’s been four years and I still can’t believe I get to be your mom. I needed to write that little snapshot because, with four years of practice, I know how quickly you will change, right under my nose.

Tomorrow you will be different and a year from now you will be different and four years from now you will - by God’s grace - be different than you are today. Each iteration of you feels to me like death and birth in microcosm. Gone is the newborn who looked to me at every moment for every need, whose whole world was found in my face, my scent, my breast. Gone is the infant who only napped while snuggled against my chest, her sticky fingers and warm breath. Gone is the toddler who loved to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and always needed a hand to hold while going down the slide at the park.

And soon I’ll say gone is the spunky four-year-old who squeals with delight anytime a friend comes over, who is obsessed with volcanoes, who sings Country Roads while dancing in the kitchen. There is the death in microcosm. The you you are today that I am absolutely, madly in love with won’t last.

But my girl, you are Abigail The Wise. Who knows who you will become, what worlds you’ll change, how you will follow the Lord with your whole heart? There is the birth in microcosm, that as each new facet of who you are becoming is made known to me, I get to fall in love with you over and over and over again.

What a gift it is to be your mom. Today, tomorrow, and for always.

With love,

Mom

To My Dad, On Father's Day

Dear Dad,

A few months ago I heard you answer the phone and talk with so much kindness and gentleness to a man whose parents’s home had just burned down. He was a policyholder, calling about insurance questions he knew you could answer, but over the course of that phone call I got to listen to you love him, counsel him, make him feel seen and known. It was the kind of conversation I’m sure you have every day, but hearing it in that context made something click in my mind about the kind of man you are. 

You often joke that you don’t have a magic wand you can wave to fix everything. I suppose you’re right - it’s not a magic wand. What you have is this dogged determination to love the people around you so well. And to the rest of us, it looks an awful lot like magic. 

I’m only just uncovering the incredible gifts of my childhood with you as my dad: the weeks you spent taking us on vacations, planning everything out in such a way so the whole trip felt like magic to me. The way you noticed the things that were meaningful to each of us and then spent intentional time doing them (for me: reading and build-a-bear stuffed animals.) The easy way you hug me, laugh with me, love on mom. 

All these things you worked so hard to do felt like they just fell into place effortlessly. You never demanded your hard work be applauded or even noticed. You never pointed out the sacrifices you made. You were quiet about all that. You just loved me and our family well. 

I could talk about so many things that make you an incredible father - your patience, kindness, hard work. But it’s this determined love of yours that makes you unique. I think I’ll spend the rest of my life uncovering the little ways you love me and the people around you with this seemingly impossible level of intentionality and hiddenness. 

You’re in a league of your own, Dad. 

Happy Father’s Day.