A Letter from my Father

My Daddy sent me this letter yesterday... I am posting it in hopes that it might encourage you today.

May you, my dear friends, be free to enjoy and love as Christ did.

I love you daddy. Thank you for being such a beautiful example of parenting to both Adam and I.

My Dearest Lauren,

As I was reading today's chapters in my 'reading through the Bible in a year' plan (remember when Mom used to do that?), I was assigned, among other chapters, I Samuel, Chapter 1.

I know you have referenced this story and these passages numerous times over the last few months and I imagine you have pondered them deeply in your heart as well. They speak of many things, don't they? That God really cares for us. That sometimes His answers are not 'No', but rather 'in My time, dear child'. That He really does delight in bringing us joy. That He truly hears our prayers...It's remarkable how the trajectory of life sometimes takes off in unexpected and strange directions. Even more astonishing (to me anyway) is how quickly it all seems to pass.  'Poof'- like Brigadoon - it vanishes.  Just like that. Where did it go, I wonder?

God has been pleased to bless you and Adam, yet another time, with Beatrice. I think you know I couldn't be happier for you both! It's been a while to be sure, but I remember quite fondly the days of playing peek-a-boo and reading books and changing dirty diapers. Such thoughts bring me smiles...many of them. I look forward to reliving some of those moments with Beatrice.

And I also want you to know that I understand how bittersweet this is for you. I've told you at least once (I believe) how Mom was brought to tears at the sight of a young grandmother holding her grandbaby as she and I waited together in a lobby at Virginia Baptist Hospital. She knew, even though I was still believing for a miracle, that she was witnessing with her eyes one of the few blessings of life that would never be hers to enjoy. It truly broke her heart.

But because I knew your mother better than anybody else in the world, I knew exactly what she was thinking as the tears started to roll down her still beautiful but sadly taut and emaciated face. She sized things up quickly (as she was always able to do). Mom didn't take any more or less time then than she ever took when faced with a situation that was not to her liking. Disappointments to your mother, like most other things, were in short order run through her remarkably tight theological grid. Your mother, although imperfectly, truly attempted to allow her theology (how things REALLY are according to Scripture) to inform her actions and attitudes.

She cried as she watched the young grandmother caress and embrace her grandbaby. But she regained her composure. Not because she feared how she might look to the strangers and onlookers about, but rather because she already had processed her feelings - theologically. Some, and I sadly fear many, would say that people don't really do that. But they do, Lauren. And God's Word tells us to, as you well know. Your mother did it.

Mom believed that we didn't DESERVE anything, except that is, the condemnation that our sin and rebellion brought upon us. And so, even through her tears, even in the midst of her pain, she subordinated her emotions and feelings to the Sovereign Creator in whose presence she knew she would shortly be. For above all things she knew that she had been 'translated from darkness into the Kingdom of His marvelous light.' And measured against this unspeakable blessing, save being in His very presence herself, every other desire or want or hope or wish or expectation simply paled.

Regardless of what her culture insisted, irrespective of what her emotions and feelings were creating inside of her, despite what her Christian friends with poorer theological training might say...she KNEW that her God was good and that His goodness was not to be measured by (just) the pleasant and favorable things He brought to her. I know for a fact that being a grandmother (especially to your children!) would have been one of the supreme honors of her life. But I also know for a fact that she didn't feel as though she deserved it.

Thus, she was not left the option to pout, whine, whimper or throw a 'pity party'. To do so would have been an extreme display of ingratitude for her. For she knew that she had already, in fact, been handed the greatest blessing of all  -- Christ in her, the hope of glory! She believed that the habit of presuming upon God's goodness would truly break the heart of her Lord who, through His death, had already made her a joint-heir of His kingdom! And so it was against the truthful statements found within the pages of Holy Writ that she decided to weigh all of her expectations and wants and desires and even the disappointments of this life. She knew her Bible well enough to know 'that the present sufferings of this world didn't compare to the glory of what was awaiting her.'

Furthermore, if her theology wouldn't allow her to feel sorry for herself, neither did it allow her to dwell on misfortune. To choose to linger too long on the questions of 'WHY?' (sin of commission) or to not earnestly enough seek to get beyond the providential ordering of our lives (sin of omission) is to imply of the One Who loves us supremely that He, in fact, must not. For if He did love us, we are tempted to ask, why would He allow such things to happen?

For your mother, such questions and attitudes were...well, yes...theologically inappropriate. Scripture taught her that her Heavenly Father is not arbitrary. NOTHING, she believed, could happen to her unless it was for her own good as well as His glory. She knew all too well that those who spend too much time asking 'WHY?' have that much less time and energy to look and watch and anticipate the good which He providentially ordained would spring forth. Or worse yet, preoccupation with one's own misfortune results in an inability to feel or notice or enter into our neighbor's pain.

Trusting God when things go as we would have them is a rather simple thing, don't you think? It's when things don't go our way that our character is tested and our understanding of God is heightened.

What your mother grasped so well, again according to Scripture, was that our peace and happiness is found neither in having what we want, nor getting what we think we deserve. Happiness and joy are found in obedience and trust. There is a marked difference between the two perspectives. For, as the Good Book states, 'His ways are not our ways'.

And then, of course, there is the 'flip side' of embracing good theology. And this, I think, is where Mom really benefited. Good theology begets good theology. If your mother truly believed that she didn't DESERVE anything good, then she was free to fully ENJOY everything.  That was her secret, my dearest Lauren. Nobody knew that better than me.

I pray that you'll feel your mother's 'freedom' during the last eight weeks of your pregnancy. I pray also that you'll realize how to best honor her. I think she would tell you not to dwell on the fact that she won't be here (physically) with us and Beatrice, and to rather pray that God would use this experience to somehow give you a profound ability to see, feel and minister to the pain and hurt of your fellow man. I think she would say to focus on (and verbalize back to God) the innumerable blessings of your life and not on the profound but singular disappointment of not having her present. I think she would warn you that to many women who have never even known their real mother (or whose relationship with them was abusive) you might appear rather spoiled, self-absorbed and ungrateful. I think she would remind you to be sure to count your blessings in light of the millions of women whose lifelong dream of having a baby will never come true.

Your mother believed with every fiber of her being that God was not obligated to grant her anything good. And she embraced fully the sovereignty of God in all things. That was her secret to ENJOYing 'all things richly.' And it is something that she desperately wanted all of her children (and husband) to embrace.

Let's honor her, my dearest.

Daddy