Love Letters

1-21-10
I talked for a long time to my mom on the way to the airport today. I am taking a very unusual mini-sabbatical. It is time to learn about some medical stuff, pray and focus, read and write, listen and grow – 2 days of silence and solitude of a different sort. It will be good – God has much to do in my life and I anticipate meeting with Him and gaining ground through His strength in these days.
My mom and I do not talk much, but this time on the way to Indy was a great time to catch up a little. We found ourselves talking about something I noticed yesterday evening as I got ready all that I needed for the trip and then settled into bed was that I felt an urge to write a note to the kids and my wife. No, it was more than an urge, it was a compulsion. I would not have felt right leaving without writing these little words of encouragement, instruction, love, peace, whatever. It was bigger in my mind than I had previously thought. I have always done this – when Melissa and I go away I always right a note to each child and sometimes even to my in-laws! So, I mentioned this to Melissa, how this felt so overwhelming and she asked, appropriately, “Why?”
Well, did that ever get me thinking. I started to look into the heart of the notes, the emotion behind it, the associated times I had felt these emotions in the past in my life. Here’s what I think: I feel this compulsion to write the note because there is a fear deep inside me that something will happen to me and I want to give them something wonderful as my last input to their lives. I know that sounds massively messed up and I don’t know what to say about it so let me continue, before I am mentally shipped off to the padded room in your mind.
I remember at age 7, walking with mom into the basement (why are hospital cafeterias always in the dark, windowless basement?) of Carle Clinic hospital, Champaign, Illinois. My dad was upstairs in some room. I knew he was sick, but really not much more and was mainly, as most 7 year olds, concerned with my life and what important things were going on in the life of a first grader. My mom sat me down at a table, before we even got our food and tried to gently break the news to me, “They say that your daddy is probably going to die, Jay.” The words hung in the air as if they were made of lead, and they landed in my gut and head the same way. The shock rung through me, wave after wave of grief and despair and loss and crushing pain wracked my little unprepared mind. I screamed, over and over, “My daddy can’t die! My daddy can’t die! My daddy can’t die!” It was all I could think or say or summon to express the loss I was feeling.
I spent the next months wondering if he really would die, or if he might live. It looked like he might be ok and he made it home, only to be rushed to the hospital, after almost dying in our living room. My life seemed to have had its stable point cut out and there was nothing I could do to paste it back into place again.
Well, he survived, and we had another almost 14 years together. But I don’t think I have ever recovered from the shock and heartbreak of that day in the hospital cafeteria. Even as I write about it now, my eyes fill up with tears – it has been 31 years…
Getting back to the present, I have this compulsion to write letters and this sense that I don’t want to abandon my family without something wonderful, remember? Well, I suppose you can connect the dots. I truly believe that the crush I felt in that cafeteria brings me to a place where I so badly don’t want that to ever happen to my kids that I without realizing it write them letters before I leave them. I suppose it is a survival mechanism I have formed from the pain inside. But, the thing is, in spite of the pain that started the letters, they are a really wonderful thing. The letters are nearly always still there when I get back, often times next to their beds – sometimes I find them months or years later, clung to, prized, cherished reminders of daddy’s love.
So, lots of sentimentality…plenty of confessional and potential for my healing in sharing my experiences, but what does all this mean to anyone but me and my family? Is that what you are thinking? Here’s the “So what?”
First, many of you look at me as this kind man who cares deeply, speaks with authority, prays long, and on and on and on. You need to understand that my life is scarred with loss and pain and hurt – just like yours and the person next to you. I do believe in a better way of life and love to tell about the way that God can change people’s lives and help them live more meaningful, joyful, wonderful lives. But, this is not because I have lived some kingly, charmed life of ease. The circumstances of my life have crushed me, over and over and over again.
Second, know that the loss and pain and heartache that I went through with my dad created so much havoc in my life that I felt a sense of instability in my world for most of my life, it was awful and there is much more that I haven’t said in this letter. But, look at what all that pain and loss has become in God’s hands. I began many years ago realizing that I had no way of getting better over the pain and hurt inside me. My heart was broken and I had no idea how to love. I was angry and hurtful, manipulative and destructive, addicted and filled with rage. Yet, as I began to see that the path to “more” of what I wanted was a dead end, my heart began to cry for its maker. I began to invite God into my hurts and ask for His help. I began to search for His truth and notice the wonder of His world. And then an amazing thing happened, the pain and the heartache began to be changed into something beautiful. He began to change shrieking sobs ringing in the ears of a 7 year old into love letters written from the heart of a daddy so consumed with love that it must overflow into the lives of his children, his wife, his patients, his community, his world. I can’t tell you how it all works specifically, like in some psychological dialogue or something, but I can tell you that I have seen it over and over and over again in the lives of those who would give up their hurts and pain to the More who can change them to love letters.
Well, as you probably caught above, my dad died when I was a senior in college – almost 21 years old. It was a hard time – 17 years ago this week. So, the talk with me mom, about my love letters was particularly poignant. It was good to talk to her – I think in some way she understands the morphing God has done in my life better than anyone – she was the only one there for the sobs in the cafeteria besides me and she certainly watched in dismay the path of destruction I followed for so many years afterward. But, she also sees with glee, the change of heart that God has brought to my life. I only hope that He will continue to pour out his love from my wounds for many years to come and…

that many more of you will get a chance to experience this wonderful way of living.

This, by the way is what we do at More than more. The people who come together and hang out every other Thursday are seeing this kind of change in their lives – even as they continue to experience the crush of life.

We hope to have a chance to share this with you. Please join us.

We will be getting together next Thursday, 2/4, at McAllister Community Center, 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM

As always, there will be excellent, free childcare