When I look at the date on my last post, it's hard for me to believe it's been that long since I've written anything. My days have been full, and mostly joyful, and have brought me home to Indiana twice. But time stops for me when my dad gets sick. Or rather, it keeps going, and I just don't pay attention. Things happen and I don't remember, or care. I have trouble living outside these moments and I am angered when people expect me to. I want to talk and find I cannot in the same instant. I owe it to caring, praying friends to give details, but nothing in me will let me. If I don't talk about it, I think, maybe it won't be happening. I want to spend my days sitting in a hospital room and can't help wondering how I will ever keep doing what I'm supposed to be doing in future times like these, when all I want is to flee responsibility and focus on the pain at hand.
Almost two years ago, on the day they took away my dad's cancer, we woke up at 4 in the morning and drove to the hospital on an empty highway in near silence. And God spoke to me in a pass-it-on billboard that said "Your family can do incredible things, too," and also in the radio's Rich Mullins song that continues to chase me into prayer chapels and prayerful positions in which I can't help but pray, "Won't you be my Prince of Peace?" I think often of that moment and swell with emotion when I realize that God had ordained that moment from the beginning of time, so that he could put a steady hand on my shoulder and comfort me when I felt so alone and forgotten. On some level, I need to feel that again.
Today we watched The Duchess and I'm in the middle of reading Three Cups of Tea. This week I am overwhelmed by so many emotions toward life, love, and God that I feel lost in myself and in the greater picture of the world. I have trouble seeing past my family's struggles that seem to perpetually reappear just when I've forgotten the sting of the last illness. When I read this book, I question my own mundane daily life and want to throw away everything I own and trust God enough to risk even being "detained" in whatever unreached, unadulterated part of the world I might find myself in. And when I watch this movie, I am filled with the desire to empower the oppressed and create better lives--and find a voice--for society's marginalized.
Who am I? How do these things fit together? What am I supposed to do? Crying makes me feel better, but in the morning, the problems are still there.
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My Sweet Girl, Everyone has their own road, and every family their own travels together. Mine has had a few bumps, even potholes, but I am a better driver as a result... You don't remember the drive 12yrs, 2mo, 9days ago as the sun rose on a beautiful morn and you and your brother slept in the back seat... it turned out to be a new life for me, for us. Likewise, those 2yrs ago when we rode smoothly in silence together, a peaceful beautiful image to me still... You see, it is who you are on the journey with that matters, and as long as He is driving you will be fine. Even though you are not physically present sitting beside me, you are always there beside me... I feel your love, your presence. You are always a part of me where ever I am in Africa, or in a hospital bed...
Look at what you have seen, have done, have accomplished, and you have just started your life. Your language skills, your medical skills, your heart skills are why you will do great things for Him. You have lived with the poor, know the poor, traveled the world serving those no one else will love. And your struggle to find the correct job was based on your desire to serve the largest number of the forgotten, the unloved. I know of no one else that has ever looked at employment that way, and I love you for it. You and Luke have no choice but to serve... it is your DNA, and his sense of justice and care is strong as strong as yours. Your Daddio
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