My
thirteen-year old, he gets his eyes from his dad. He gets his sense of humor and his joy of
life from him too. His ability to make
you laugh even if he is sad; yes, that’s his dad too.
But
this look, this look of fear. I know it
well, because he learned it from me.
I
wasn’t sure at first but when he pushed the grits and eggs across the table and
said he wasn’t hungry, I knew.
He
would be gone all day. He was headed an
hour away with two hundred kids he didn’t know to practice and sing in a choir,
to learn four pieces of music and then present them to college professors, high
school teachers and hundreds of parents.
I
told him to do his best, but best often borders the battlefield of
expectations that can murder joy. He was
not joyful.
I
sat across from him reading a devotion and praying for the boy. I wanted him to love this. His voice is a gift; I wanted him to
experience the joy of sharing that gift.
The ability to share one’s gifting is truly where passion is born and
where our testimony can be told.
\
I
silently prayed and quietly read. The
title, “HEAL me” disappointed me a
bit. I wanted something that said, “Help
me” that would spin some wisdom for my son.
I
glanced through the words landing on the story of Joni Erickson Tada. Three
days into her paralyzing accident I read, at the age of seventeen, a friend sat
by her bedside reading the story of the pool of Bethesda. The man at the pool had been paralyzed for
thirty-eight years when Jesus passed by with His healing hand. Joni
cried to God saying three days was too much Lord, thirty-eight years impossible.
Thirty
years later, Joni’s wheelchair took her to the ruins of Bethesda. Her prayer those thirty years before came
back to her and she penned these words, “He said, no. And I’m glad.
A ‘no’ answer has purged sin from my life, strengthened my commitment to
him, forced me to depend on grace, bound me with other believers, produced
discernment, fostered sensitivity, disciplined my mind, taught me to spend my
time wisely, stretched my hope, made me know Christ better, helped me long for
truth, led me to repentance of sin, goaded me to give thanks in times of
sorrow, increased my faith, and strengthened my character. Being in this wheelchair has meant knowing
him better, feeling his strength ‘every day.’”
“Beauty
out of ashes,” I could read it between her lines. That single phrase I have prayed again and
again. It is promised in scripture.
I
have envisioned beauty, and imagined the end of suffering, the healing of
bodies, and the reparation of relationships.
But
what if the BEAUTY to which Jesus refers exists not so much in the natural but
in the supernatural? What
if the beauty He describes is the beautification of the heart? What
if the lessons rest in fear, in illness, in pain and in grief?
I
who had despised this fear in my son just moments before now held it instead of
hastening it away. It
is here in these moments that my son will be relying on Jesus. He will need him today.
He
cannot run to parents that are not there, nor friends. Today, he will only have You, Jesus. “Teach him that today,” I whispered.
You
are not enough son, I am not
enough, there is only One that is
enough. There is only One that completes
us. There is only One that takes the
empty shell, the splintered heart and makes us whole.
Come
to know that and you will not despise disappointment nor run from fear; you will use them as road-maps to the
Redeemer.
He
allows these moments to point out in the gentlest ways that we are not enough,
not good enough, smart enough, rich enough, wise enough. We fall, we scrape knees and our arms flail
and then we realize the hand pulling us up, the arm on our back is His.
And
we find beauty.
It
is not mirror beauty, it is heart beauty, soul beauty, the beauty that
reflects, refines and redeems. And
we can say hallelujah in the hollow that is now full and hallowed.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you
another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither
sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. John 14:16-18
A Song written by my husband for Beau
John 14:16-18
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