Today I woke up and I realized my brain hadn’t thought of you for a while. My soul holds a hollow place where you used to be, but my brain misses the thoughts I used to have: “Does Tristan need new jeans? Will his winter coat fit this year? Did he remember his ortho appointment? How much spaghetti if he’s home for dinner?”
I even miss the thoughts that broke us: “What’s wrong with my boy? Why won’t he tell me? Where did this anger come from? Why doesn’t he want to be with us like he used to?”
And the saddest thoughts of all because they were the last ones before we found you: “I should get up and go check on Tristan. No, he’s fine. He just came home from a worship concert. God, please tell me what’s wrong with my boy. I’ll take his pain. Just give it to me, I know You can because You can do anything. I’ll take it, if he can just be free. Please save my boy and break the chains that are binding him”.
That was five years ago. I wish I was still wondering if your jeans would fit, but now I am wondering what heaven is like for you.
Will you be the first to greet me, or will Jesus stand in front of you? Will you be 6’3 with dimples, curls and the same blue eyes I prayed for? What will they look like free from pain? These are the thoughts no mother should ever have to consider.
Dear God, I did not know that healing Tristan meant taking him Home to be with You. I thought I knew a Holy purpose to raise and love the children you had given me. I did not know that You would call me to Your purposes, far beyond my own. I read about your saints that carried a thorn but thought that was for “bible characters”. Now a thorn is firmly planted in my breast and bears the name of loss. You used it to drive me to Your feet, Your arms and I see You like I never did before you took my boy Home. I am Your bewildered lamb initiated into the furnace of suffering, but I am learning what one of Your own said so well:
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face. –Martha Snell Nicholson
Lord, please kiss my boy for me. Trace his left eyebrow so he knows it’s from his mom. In Jesus name, Amen.
