…father’s day…
I am grateful for things that occur that are built in that remind me to continue to feel, like today. I don’t know what it is or why or if it’s a guy thing or if I am weird, but I have the ability to either turn off my emotion or simply forget to feel all of the time. As I become more conformed to the image of Christ, I think engaging with how I feel is becoming more and more normal. I hope that it is. But in the absence of that, days like today remind me.
A few weeks ago, Renee and I were getting ready in the bathroom one morning and Renee’ said “Hey you are going to have some money to spend in San francisco while we are there for Father’s day”. It just came rolling off of her tongue, so normal, as if to say ‘C, you’re a dad, and father’s day is coming…’ Before that moment, although I had talked about Father’s day, been a part of planning for a Father’s day service at church, thought about what songs would be good on Father’s day, I seriously hadn’t connected the dots. I started thinking about the realities of facing today, and realized ‘I’m a dad, of course I’m a dad, but I don’t HAVE him…I don’t get to BE with him.’ And I just started sobbing, it was such a trigger. Isn’t that weird? To be triggered that way? All the ladies in the house say “that ain’t weird sucka”. I just haven’t felt what triggers feel like. It has really occurred to me that my ability to control my emotion has become something that I lean on a lot, and value, much to my dissatisfaction. I have gotten to the place then where to feel pain on the inside of my core, is to also feel out of control. It is interesting how that starts to affect us that way. We hate feeling out of control, so we develop defense mechanisms and distastes towards those things that make us feel that way. I think I can attribute a tremendous amount of my dislike for pain to this. The worst part is how it has caused me to dislike my wife’s pain. I repent, and I thank God, that by His Spirit, He is using all of this in my life to make me more like His Son. It feels good to feel, even if feeling means feeling something I don’t love to feel.
This weekend has been hard leading worship. We did “Blessed be Your name” in the services. It was hard to sing “You give and take away” and not lose it. More than that in every service, there was at least one person in full sob in the crowd during that entire song. Many times I just cried with them, and felt this overwhelming and beautiful sense of God saying “C, you’re not alone buddy”. I want to thank God for the 2 safe people who asked me at church today how I am doing and how this day is affecting me. That was so good for my soul. I am so blessed already by this body. God is good.
God continues to really show Himself to us in this season. This past week we had the chance to spend some time with some friends who were part of the inner circle in the days just following our loss of Titus. It was so life-giving. The crazy thing about it is that she is 8 months pregnant! We weren’t sure how it would go, but man, awesome. Renee’ picked up her camera for the first time since all of this, and actually had the desire to shoot. I didn’t realize how not seeing Renee’ take pictures for this long was really affecting me, like not getting to see a part of my wife for three months, I was so grateful for that. We are so unbelievably loved and taken care of by our friends, in such beautiful, hidden, small ways. We feel loved by everyone, and are grateful for all of the people that have surrounded us, but God, in His abundant mercy, chose, and specifically appointed some folks, a short list of couples, to just carry this burden with us in such a unique way. God laid that out before them before they took breath, and we are eternally grateful. Those friendships are seared deep within us, and will always hold a special place. Recently, one couple, demonstrated one of the most perfect pictures of God’s love I have ever seen in my existence as a human being. They gave us a large sum of money toward our adoption, and as I look at their life right now, I can see that they had to make enormous sacrifices to do so. I am talking about small things, everyday, that for them, I have seen, were hard and a lot to give. I was overwhelmed and simply wept for joy over their gift. What a picture of the body of Christ. They had already given up so much before this. Praise God for His generosity and for His love. And, believe me, it is so not about money. Renee’ and I are not remotely worried about paying for the adoption if it is what God wants for us. It was completely the love I felt from my brother and sister in that moment. I will cherish that for the rest of my life.
These moments cause us all to ask some really hard questions about what we believe about the goodness of God. We are forced to face and reconcile parts of our relationship and understanding of Him that have before this been easier to trust and have faith in. Fortunately for Renee’ and I, we have studied in seminary and have some great answers to tough theological questions about the goodness of God. One of my favorite pictures in our world of God is how evil, and pain, and tragedy, while they are so present, and so clear, and so visible, are also pretty blatantly weak in their Affect against humanity, the earth, and the plans of God. Let’s take the concepts of heroism, valor, courage, and sacrifice. These are all human attributes that are only in existence as a result of pain and destruction, and lets be honest, if we look close, they often have the last word. Certainly in God’s Kingdom they do. I am so thankful for the courageous, and the rescuers in my life, God has shown His face so much in and through you, often in words, in deeds, and in your willingness to just sit with us for a minute. And the more I participate in what God is doing, the more my eyes are opened, the more I have only eyes to see that which is eternal and part of God’s plan, the more I see small victories, as well as large victories, in my own life, in the lives of people around me, that simply make tragedy and despair, and pain, suddenly very small. Oh dear God, the author, and the master architect, as much as this thing sucks, in every way it can, You are rocking my world, and I frieking love You.
If I haven’t said it enough, I love my Lord, my savior, Jesus Christ, with all my heart and my mind and my soul. Nothing, nothing can be done to me, or taken from me, that will change my deep love and commitment to the One who gave it all. To Him be all of the glory and the honor and the praise that this small life has to offer. Why are you downcast my soul? For I will sing again!
Thank you for your love. To pray for: Timing timing timing with the adoption. We are trusting that the Lord will bring our next child in the right season, in the right time. It has probably sounded like we are in a hurry, and some of you have probably been thinking “oh man I hope they are ready for all of this”, trust me we are checking in on those same things with the Lord and with others. We are in no rush. We simply know that our next step is to adopt, it could be months, it could be a year, that is cool with us. We do not want him a day earlier or a day later than the Lord wants. And our next is going to bring plenty for us to work through regardless if it is now or 5 years from now. We will engage fully in that, and deal with it every step of the way. So please pray that God will just perfectly orchestrate that timing (as if He wouldn’t, but you know, let’s be praying =])
Praise God that Renee’s milk is fully in, and she is pumping away, got a whole freezer full (selling it by the gallon, totally kidding, unless you want to buy from me cash only under the table, then I’m dead serious, just kidding, but seriously, I got the supply).
Don’t want to talk much about some other cool things going on in our world, but God is working in some ways that I hope will continue to help us use our story and our journey to glorify Him. So pray for that, that God will continue to use Renee’ and I’s life as a testimony.
Pray that God will bless the crud out of those couples who are walking with us, they have been faithful to Him.
Love you all deeply
C and R
