When everything in the world seems out of control, it’s comforting to step out the back door and immediately be captured by the orderliness of nature.
Each plant in the flowerbed or vegetable patch blooms or bears fruit according to the schedule the Master Gardener drew up for it.
These walls can speak, actually.
That’s the thought that crosses my mind as I travel from to room to room with the vacuum cleaner, sucking up the debris of the last week and a half (don’t judge) and wishing I was doing something else.
This past spring, when we were all hunkered down at home and anxiously awaiting a bit of good news about the Covid-19 pandemic, I often found peace just outside my back door.
I’m a homebody, for sure. A gardening homebody, on top of that. But it’s been many years since I made it a near-daily springtime practice to wander around my yard and check up on the progress of all the growing things.
I haven’t made it an official goal or anything, but it seems 2020 has gradually become The Year of Trying New Things for me.
I’ve written about some of that here, and I hope to continue the conversation in the coming months.
This week, though, I’m trying something new in this space—I’m joining a linkup hosted by blogger Heather Gerwing that encourages writers to share “Four Somethings” from the past month.
I don’t know if this will become a regular feature or something I post only when the mood hits. Either way, it’s been fun to come up with this first list of something loved, something read, something treasured and something ahead.
When it comes to places to live, Kansas is not very glamorous. Nobody has ever said, “Wow, I bet it’s beautiful there,” or “I’ve always wanted to live there,” when they find out where my home is.
I get it. I’ve been around the country, and Kansas is a bit boring compared with the rest of the states. One thing I do love about living here, though, is the fact that we have four distinct seasons.
There it was, in the subject line of a promotional email from the photo company we’d used to print Lilly’s senior pictures: “Don’t forget about dad.”
The timing made sense, given that Father’s Day was less than two weeks away. But when I read it, I couldn’t escape the irony.
Of course the message wasn’t directed at me specifically. It’s been a year since my dad died. This will be our second Father’s Day without him, although just barely.
Still, I couldn’t help but take it a little bit personally.
I was already feeling the weight of the world that day—sadness like I hadn’t experienced in a long while, an overwhelming ache for one more conversation with the man who always made me feel better, just by being there.
Forget about dad? I couldn’t even if I tried.
Girls need their dads. It was true in my own life. I see it being played out again with my husband and daughters.
Boys too, just as much (though perhaps in different ways).
My oldest brother expressed it well when we were putting together my dad’s obituary: “I will be eternally grateful to have had him for a father,” he wrote.
What a blessing to be able to express that about the man who raised you and then grew into a dear friend over the course of your adult life. I know not everyone is able to say this, and my heart aches for those that cannot.
My limited understanding of the fatherhood of God has always been a spiritual anchor in my life, probably because of my earthly father’s example and influence. Since his death, I’ve been busy with estate duties and working through grief and tending to my own family, so I haven’t spent a lot of time contemplating God’s role as my heavenly Father in this new, parentless season of my life.
Now, though, those responsibilities are wrapped up—save finding one missing safe-deposit box key (or paying $20 for a replacement). After that, all that remains are my dad’s writings—a collection of children’s stories, Bible study notes, thoughts about all sorts of things scratched out in miscellaneous notebooks—for me to go through, one page at a time.
I’m looking forward to this process. It will help me stay close to him, I think. It will enable me to keep learning from him, and about him.
In a way, I have this same opportunity with my heavenly Father. We all do, actually. We don’t have His thoughts and stories in boxes in our basements, but within the pages of scripture, we have all that we need to learn from Him, and about Him.
What this should look like—what it will look like for me in the coming years—remains to be seen. God isn’t a substitute or replacement for my human father, but certainly, the older I get, the more I hope to depend on Him for comfort, wisdom and stability, much like I depended on my dad over the years.
Unlike my dad, however, God is all-sufficient. He truly is all I need, and I hope to spend the rest of my life to learning to live like I believe it.”
♥ Lois
This post is part of a collection called Help for Parent Loss. To read more, please click here.
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