Dealing with the hardships of life that sometimes make finding joy difficult, according to Jake in an AIM message with his mother on July 29th, 2004
“…maybe like wiping up baby diarreha, gross at first and you don’t want to do it, but you feel better and smell good afterwards.”
This is the day that my oldest son officially went to Paradise.
This day always make me pause. It will hold a special place in my heart until it’s my time to go there.
Death is a strange kind of transition in any way that I can imagine, but especially so in his case. It is the suspicion of those that were there at the accident, that he was gone before the medical team pronounced him so, a little less than 12 hours after his dad and uncles found him lying still on a turn in a gravel road, high up in the mountains of Colorado
The details of his going don’t really matter although I share a bit of them so that whoever might be reading this and might need to know so they can assess the rest of what I will say.
What matters is who he is, who he was, and what those of use who wait our turn to make that transition have done and are doing.
It is important for you to know while I am always sad about this stupid thing that happened, something Jake and I talked about quite often in the last couple of years before his going continues to rest and grow in my heart.
Jake and I talked about joy.
Not happiness, but joy.
Jake, like me, tended to the melancholy. But this isn’t about melancholy. I had to set you up so you could understand the joy part.
Neither Jake nor I had the whole answer of how joy comes in the morning (or any time) during our conversational admissions before October 20, 2005. It was a necessary part to get us started us to the place we needed to go. It is for certain he knows perfect joy now and because of that day 14 years ago, I can tell you in truth, so do I.
Here’s what I desire for you to know: Experiencing a lasting and powerful truth takes some wisdom. And wisdom comes with time and thought.
I have joy in my heart this evening, because I know who I am, where I am going, why I am here, and how I got here.
The journey isn’t finished for me here, like my Jake’s is, but you need to know, just how joyful I am about it all.
I have a deep-seated joy that doesn’t rest on the circumstances of this world. It rests ever more fully on the peace that the beauty and reality of Christ in this world provides for me. My joy is filled every day by God who is so much bigger than me that my mind can’t hold him wholly but knows Him to be fully Holy. I revel that he is continually pursuing me, loving me, reassuring me that in the end, everything will be okay. He holds my heart. Every day, every moment.
It is appropriate that this October 20, 2019 lands on a Sunday because I went to church. And it was a glorious morning. My favorite teacher preacher lead worship and class. (If you don’t know about why I say this, take a chance and give a listen. Or read here. Or here. It is important to have people in your life that you look up to and who provide some measure of honesty in your life. After Jake left, I asked God for this very thing. And He answered my heart. It was part of my path to joy.)
This day I wish for you joy.
I cherish the happiness that is mine, the three precious sons I bore, the husband that has stayed by my side, the brother and mother that are part of who I am, the knowledge I have gained about how this world works through a career I never dreamed of having. But the joy, oh the joy that I have, comes from the truth that in the end, the creator of all of this who freely gave me the choice to love or refuse him, loves me. And you.
I love this song… Jake would have too!
