Because I know the end of the story,
I have a hard time seeing grief.
It's too easy to skip that day
and say Sunday's coming!
I need to hear middles of stories.
So I can see. Maybe not hear or
see, but feel.
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In God’s mysterious and inexplicable ways he has taken mine and your mother’s broken DNA and woven in an extra copy of the 23rd chromosome into you. The grief that that news brought us has been gradually replaced with expectation of blessing. The stories that surround different boys, girls, men, and women with Down Syndrome that have come our way since your diagnosis have been consistently stories of childlike and irreplaceable joy.
Life has its costs and its benefits and the thing about believing in God is that we look with faith for surpassing blessing. Life is not a zero sum game for those who love God.
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I have Bipolar Disorder. This is not news. I always think it’s news. I always think it’s going to be so scandalous to announce. I think that telling anyone I am sick will be disappointing, will discredit any ounce of wisdom and wellness I may ever have, and undo any bit of the good I’ve done. As if this is a disease tamed by diligence and strong moral character. It does not matter how perfectly I eat, how long I sleep, how meticulously I curate my media consumption, sometimes,
I just get sick. Really sick.
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Many of you were and some still are people we've never met - yet you have become family to us. You have loved us. You have personified what Jesus said in Matthew 25: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
I grew up poor, but I have never known such need as this past year: emotional, spiritual, physical. And Jesus used many of you to meet many of those needs.
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When Max died, we suffered for something. Our suffering was redemption because we did it with our hope in Christ. God redeemed the very act of suffering not by negating it, but by bringing meaning and purpose to it, making it more whole than it was, more complete and holy. When we lost our plans for a future missionary life, I didn't have the faith to believe there was purpose or meaning. In this way, the pain and anguish from this loss quickly overtook my pain for our son. It became the less bearable of the two, and the one I avoided.
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