It’s been two and a half months. Has that much time already passed? Two and a half months… since I received that phone call. Two and a half months since….
When you go overseas or simply travel long distances, one of your greatest fears – one of your nightmares – is that something will happen to the people you love and left behind, and there will be nothing you can do about it. It’s been two and a half months since that nightmare became a reality for me.
I’ve held off writing this because I knew it would be one of the hardest things I’d ever write, but I also knew it would be the first thing that needed to be written… eventually. How do you express the pain of losing your Father? Where do you go from here? How do you make it from one day to the next? Why is there even a “next” day?
The truth is, I don’t WANT to go on! I don’t WANT to move forward! Not without my father! Not without my Daddy!
But I guess I don’t have choice, do I? We don’t get a choice in this. We simply have to accept it. And move forward.
No, that’s not right. To “move forward” implies a willingness, even reluctant willingness, to take steps in a given direction at a given pace. That’s not me. That’s not what I’m doing.
Crawling forward. That’s more fitting. A slow movement on your hands and knees as you struggle to find the strength to push on. Crawling forward. Two and half months of crawling. And weeping.
I still have nightmares reliving that call. I still remember that plane ride. The sorrow. The mourning. But there was something else there, as well, from God. I don’t want to call it “peace,” but it was definitely a sense of, “I understand your pain and am here for you.” It wasn’t “comfort,” but it was a little “comforting.”
The tragedt happened in the middle of the night, Wednesday morning, China-time. My gracious uncle got us a flight for Thursday. We were in Kentucky by Thursday night EST. The Service was on Friday. WHAT A MIRACLE IT WAS FOR US TO EVEN BE THERE! How is that for being “here for you”? Praise God!
You know, one of the big problems with such a sharp transition is that it all feels surreal. When you make a big transition like that, most of the time you spend long periods of time preparing for it, anticipating it, awaiting it. But to transition so suddenly, in less than 48 hours, you don’t get that anticipation. It feels… fake.
You begin to question the recent events. “Am I really in the United States? Did I even go to China? Is this all a nightmare? Was China just a dream?” And then you do the same thing, asking the same questions, two weeks later, when you head back to where you were – to where you know God wants you to be.
But how can you head back? How can you just pick up where you left off? How do you just move on?
In some regards, you don’t pick up, and you don’t move on. Sure, time will push us forward, reluctantly, unwillingly. But we are not the same person. A piece of you is forever gone.
In some regards, you simply have to. You have to remember that God’s ways are not our ways. You have to remember that we are here for His glory, not our own. Besides, it’s what Dad would have wanted – to continue the work God called us to do.
Does that make it easier? Maybe, maybe not. But we must, somewhere, somehow, find a way to go forward. Maybe not “move” forward. Maybe “crawl” forward. If we don’t, then we’ll become like stagnant water – dirty, smelly, worthless.
After all, we are here for a greater purpose. We are here to bring glory to God. If I’m not striving to head forward in that direction, than what good am I? If I’m not trying to bring glory to God, then why am I even here?
Has it been hard? Absolutely. Does it get easier each day? Not really, I just get better at hiding it. Do I blame or hate God for it? Not really – His ways are not my ways. Am I getting through it and going forward?
One crawl at a time.