Dear Friends,
I know its been a while - life has been busy, and I've had less time for reflection than I would like...but things are finally slowing down, and some things I'd love to share with you. Honestly, this past week has been a pretty challenging one...it took me a while to put it all together, but here are some of what has been happening recently.
Last weekend, I had the wonderful and incredible privilege of officiating at the wedding of David and Katherine, a couple who have been friends since 2008 when we spend a year together in ministry overseas. Brandi and I were leading a team they were on when they started dating, and have been cheering them on in their relationship and walking together with them for the past 9 years. The kids came with me, we made it a mini-adventure (thank you, Lego Discovery Center and hotel pool!), and we got to see some old friends. But Brandi's absence was very present, if that makes sense, during the whole weekend - feeling it in catching up with old friends we knew together, feeling it as I wrangled the kids all weekend by myself, feeling it when talking with David and Katherine and missing her gentle wisdom and love. They gave a very kind, and moving for me, recognition of her and us and our relationship with them during the reception as well. I had a few people ask how hard it was - and in the moment, honestly, my thought was that it wasn't different from any other day, when she is no longer there and I continue to try to figure out how to live without her.
But as I reflected on it this week, it was harder on me than I thought - and with what would have been our 10th anniversary yesterday, and Mother's day tomorrow, I find myself back in a trough where it is harder to get out of bed with a spring in my step, harder to get on top of things enough to make plans or look further ahead than next week, harder to hope for a future that will look like more than survival. I have collapsed into bed each night, or just wandered the house after the kid sleep, with a restlessness that can't be satisfied. Friends have asked how I am doing - and in the day to day, it all works, but in times like this I continue to wonder if this is really the life the Lord has for me, is just making it through each day what my life will look like?
I don't have answers to these questions - there is not a neat tidy final sentence. I was reminded this week of the truth that I am in the hands of a Sovereign Lord, in whose fatherly hands my life is held. I am still here, and I know that every day He has called me to faithful service, fatherhood and pastoring, and even though I wake up many days wondering if I will make it through, in fact I have, for the last 28 months.
So I'd ask for your prayers - for renewed hope, for a sense of the Lord's sufficiency, for the weight that seems to have descended on my heart and mind. Pray for our daily rhythms to be filled with a knowledge of our Father's love, and his grace. Pray for me to keep seeking Him, and finding space and time to just be with Him, to listen to Him,
Thank you for your prayers!
