Four brothers: one Day family son, and the men who married three Day daughters.
Generally, time moves consistently and at a measured pace. Each day arrives and passes like the blank squares on the print-your-own calendars I persist in using rather than the app I once downloaded onto my phone.
But there are days.
There are days when all those neat squares swim like the tears in your eyes until the past and the present sit right on top of one another. Then, you are caught. Time passes, but you are snagged on the past. You are like a winter coat dangling all summer long from that hook on the closet door.
*
I am caught on a winter day almost twenty years ago. I wore a white dress, and my sisters, my bridesmaids, wore green. We gathered in the fellowship room of the church of our childhood. We ate little sandwiches and cake and held white china cups of steaming coffee.
I am caught on a summer day fifteen years ago. The same fellowship room in the same church. My sister Kelli in white this time, our sister Lisa and I in pale gray.
I am caught on another summer day ten years ago. The same room. Lisa in white. Kelli and I in deep red. This time, there was a chocolate fountain.
I had not seen that room until a week ago, Saturday. We buried Shawn that day under an already hot Texas sun. Then, the fellowship room, and one more reception, but this one unimagined, unanticipated. We stood in the same room, our dresses a trio of somber colors. We held steaming cups of coffee, plates full of tiny sandwiches and cake.
Small children tugged on our arms, made it impossible to talk.
*
Every day, my children ask for ice cream and every day I give them some green vegetable. Last night, I served arugula sautéed with garlic and olive oil. Eager for a second helping of sliced strawberries, my older boy announced that he had finished all of his “kale stuff.”
I love my children, and I long to give them good gifts. Some days I hand out the lollipops. As Elsa’s Uncle Shawn was laid to rest, I unwrapped three lollipops in a row because she would not stop complaining, loudly, about the heat.
They weren’t gifts, they were bribes.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” (Matthew 7:9) Yet though my children ask for candy, I give them gifts of bittersweet broccoli, caramelized in the heat of the oven. It is my best gift for them.
I give it because they are precious to me.
*
The problem with being snagged on the past in this way, is that the events of life do not stay in their proper places. Clearly, the weddings were good gifts, and the funeral is a terrible thing, and yet all of it has seemed to merge in my mind.
Ten years ago, I stood in that fellowship room, coffee cup in hand, trying so hard not to cry. I had found out only that morning that the latest round of fertility drugs had not worked. My grief was the same color as the deep red of my bridesmaid dress.
Because I am snagged, I am no longer confident of what has been good and what has been bad. It seems to me now that the empty womb was as much a good gift as the son who will turn ten this summer.
*
Once, I was confident that our good God never causes the bad thing that is pain. But I have lost that easy answer and gained a much more mysterious question: how sure can I be calling one thing good, another thing bad?
I will let the mystery be. I will follow the pattern set in the first chapter of James. For after fifteen verses on hardship, we find these words: “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:16-17).
God does not change. He is good through and through. Yet we are easily deceived. Time plays its tricks. We feel ourselves to be standing at an end.
Forgetting that we will open our mouths wide.
Wider.
For this is not the end.
Oh Christie – this line sent chills up my arms, “how sure can I be calling one thing good, another thing bad?”
xoxo, Lisa-Jo
Oh, friend. All of this. I am catching my breath in my kitchen as I read it. I am no longer sure what is good and what is bad, either. But I am somehow even more convinced of God’s existence, despite knowing so much less.
Yes. Isn’t it strange, Laura, that we can know so much less but have so much more? It means a great deal to me that you would read and comment. I doubt my own understanding of these matters and see that others, like yourself, are and have suffered so much more. Your “amen” speaks loudly.
Christie, it’s so true. Pain and sorrow and joy and beauty, and a good good father that gives good gifts. Thankful for your healing words.
Thank you, Jordan. So glad to have you in this space.
Amen.
Oh, Kelli.
You paint breathtaking word pictures. Thank you for your honest words about faith. “Me too.”
xoxo, Traci
I have walked such a path and know your words are true. You are wise to embrace the mystery.
p.s. Beautifully captured, right down to the little sandwiches.
Thank you, Marilyn.
So heartbreaking and yet true. We don’t always know what is good or bad – at the time or even much later. And the good gifts (broccoli!) aren’t always what we would choose.
Micha Boyett wrote a piece a while back about how good gifts are sometimes prickly, and you have to fight to hold onto them. This strikes much the same chord with me. Love to you, Christie.
I love that! Prickly, indeed.
Oh how your words continue to resonate in my soul. I need to soak them in and let them live there. I will absorb them until such a time (coming oh too soon) when they will pour out as I share them with my sister and family.
I’m glad to hear this, Cindy. Thank you.
What beauty and pain/ joy and sadness in this post. Thank you for sharing, for stirring my heart and for reminding me of what seems to keep surfacing in my heart. This world will pass away. We have another home. God is Sovereign…and I trust the One who knows best. Bless you, Christie.
Thank you.
I wish I could give you a hug, and say, “I feel this way too. Burying our niece in the same church where she made her first communion and sang like an angel countless times before she died young, a year ago this month. Is this good or bad in God’s eyes. I don’t know? In our eyes her young death was bad. But God is good. I know He is forever good. Thank you for sharing your beautiful thoughts with us on grief. And God. Your writing is a gift. Prayers and blessings my friend.
My heart is with you, too, Paula.
So beautifully said, Christie. I find myself having to come full circle over and over again with those same questions – always coming to the same end. He is good.
It’s the only answer we really need isn’t it?
I found myself exhale at the line, “I will let the mystery be.” Such a testimony of trust and faith amidst the snags of this life. A good and perfect gift.
Thank you, Sharon.
There is rest in letting the mystery be, isn’t it. Good and bad, sin and sovereignty get mingled together to make the tapestry of our lives in ways we can never imagine. I’ve discovered I can find comfort in the mystery when I know I can trust God’s love for me. So beautifully expressed, Christie.
So much rest! I read somewhere recently that God doesn’t just give rest – he is rest.
I hear that verse, and I know there is always good from God, though it is hard. Too close to retirement, my husband lost his job and now we are at crossroads with many decisions to make. What is right?