Jean shorts

I'm having an exceptionally sad day today.  No real new reason, just kind of short-of-breath-sad.  How can it be almost 9 months since I talked with him?  Since we hashed out a decision together?  Since he told me he loved me?  So I started looking at pictures.  I wanted to remember.  I cried alone in my car.

I came across an engagement picture of sorts and just stared. I wanted to remember and feel being those people.  It's not a real engagement picture because we were in Guatemala and our digital cameras were dead.  I don't even feel old enough to say such ridiculous things like 'digital cameras'.  So we have very few pictures from that trip, but my head is full of memories.  Of what he said and how he smelled.

As I stared, I noticed something I don't recall noticing before.  Jean shorts!  Scott was wearing jean shorts!  I giggled through my tears!  I remember his cargo shorts that trip--because I had reached for gum and he practically had a stroke.  I was not aware he carried a ring around for days in a foreign country!  But jean shorts!  Hilarious!  I'm guessing I got rid of those right after we got married! 

It reminded me there are so many details.  Some I forget and get reminded of in flashes, almost like PTSD.  Some of those are almost mean, they're so sad.  Some make me smile.  Some details I don't notice but someone else does.  My kids must have details and flashes that I don't.  Their view is different.  They see from a different angle.

I remember in Scott's sickest day, we saw things differently too.  I was seeing his humanity differently than he could.  In some ways, his perspective was God's kindness to him because he would have never wanted to know what I was living.  He would have wanted to protect me from that.  I'm grateful he didn't have the foreknowledge 13 years before to protect me from that.  What we would have missed! 

He used to quote Luke 10:23 to me--"Blessed are your eyes for getting to see what you see".  He was pointing out God allowing me to see the fruit of some of my labor--growth and change in people.  People choosing to follow Christ right in front of my eyes.  We don't always get to see the growth of what we water and when we did, he didn't want me to miss it.

As much as I really think parts of this story are stupid right now and I've told God I think He got it wrong a lot of days...I'm grateful to be the person who walked the details with Scott Sterling.  Some silly.  Some extremely hard.  Some infuriating.  Some fulfilling.  Many life changing.  

I'm reminded to keep looking at the details.  I don't avoid the pictures or the memories or the stories in hopes that I won't hurt.  Sometimes I almost force it.  I have the strange luxury of having heard him counsel others-telling them they can't fast forward the process and they have to walk through all of it.  I hear it in his voice, but it's for me now.  He's right.  I have to feel it.  

So I had my moment.  Looked at more pictures.  And am asking God to help me see the details.  See what I missed before.  See what He wants me to see.  I needed a change of perspective.  I'm begging God for it.

The baby changed everything

This season is proving to be difficult.  Like a dark cloud wrapped in everyone around you telling you how hard it's going to be.  And it is, regardless of their foreshadowing.  

I had a moment in November where I wanted to stomp my feet and boycott Christmas.  I didn't want to decorate or bake or be excited.  Honestly, having a 7 year old is enough to force me to drag myself out of that funk.  But in the Lord's kindness, He spoke too.  Real quietly, He said "But that baby changed everything".  

I mean, think about it, it's kind of weird.  We believe God sent his Son, with skin on, and had him come through an actual mama and live on this earth.  We call it "God With Us".  Well, God called it that.  These thoughts almost stopped me in my tracks.  How did that baby change things?  My mind answered...God came to be with us.  Jesus didn't assign his little baby self Kingship--God did!  He came just as was promised much, much before and lived just like it said so that I could know Him!   So that my sin wouldn't separate me any longer--He came to live like a human and take that for me! It's nuts.  But it's true and changing.  Life changing.

And you know what?  That baby changed everything for me.  It changed the way I see death.  It changed the way I live.  Before I lost Scott.  And certainly now.  And the reality is it changed everything for Scott!  What a crazy disservice to my guy to ignore this giant season!  Scott lived and served and loved abundantly well because that baby changed everything for him! And as he slipped from this earth, I knew he was walking into new life because of what the baby grew up to do.  

Now, let me say, this doesn't make us less sad.  In fact, I seem to struggle more, not less.  My flesh is so sad.  My heart hurts and aches. But hope means something because of that baby!   Because I do not wish for this life to mean something eternal and not temporal--I wait for it.  I know it.  I wait expectantly for God to do what He said and promised.  Now and in the future.  Now--that He is with me and has a plan.  That He doesn't waste pain and that He loves me.  Later--that He is coming back and this life is but a mist.  

As I shop and remember and cry and rejoice this season--I literally think, sometimes outloud, "that baby changed everything".  And there is peace.