Weekend Plans

I'm heading off the grid for a little while to work at a church retreat Thursday through Sunday. If you have read Rare Bird, you know I haven't been sure if/when I'd be ready to help lead church retreats again. This time felt right, so I said yes. Could you please include me in your thoughts and prayers this weekend, that God will use my story to help others? Also, that I'd have enough stamina to deal with the long days and nights? Thank you!

Bonus:

I will get to leave my kitchen and puppy-patrol!

I think they will be fine without me.

6 Little Words

Years ago, I was helping out at Jack's Christmas party at school. I think it may have been 5th grade. One of the activities was to have the kids write something they could give Jesus for Christmas. I can't remember what they did after that-- perhaps we hung it in a tiny stocking on Christmas Eve. I do remember watching Jack as he sat, pencil in hand, and wondering what he would write. Would he take the assignment seriously, or would he make up something silly? The other kids were writing, and writing, and writing. Were the promising they would be more obedient in the coming year, be better siblings, or give their allowances to the needy? I never knew. But I did see Jack write something on his piece of paper and fold it up into a teeny tiny bundle. At some point later I had a chance to snoop look at it. This is what it said:

I want to love you more

 

6 little words.

I realized in that moment that my heart and my son's hearts were the same. There were many things I could do and could promise to "give" to God in the coming year, but my true desire was to love Him more. And I believed that loving Him more would help me love others better.

But even then, I knew I couldn't WILL myself into more love. I couldn't generate love either, although LOVING ACTIONS can often lead to feelings of love. I knew then, and I know even more now, that as long as I am living in this world with family, friends, neighbors, and strangers, I will need more love than I have. Slights linger. Hurts dull but resist healing. Expectations seem unmet. I don't love God as much as I wish I did (and He's, um, GOD), so how on earth can I love wretched humans like me? Especially me?

Last night Margaret and I finished reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. Corrie tells of touring the world speaking of love and hope amidst horrible circumstances, something she learned first-hand while imprisoned in a concentration camp after helping Dutch Jews evade capture during WWII. At one of her speeches after the war, a former SS guard that Corrie recognized stretched out his hand to her. He was full of contrition as he thanked her for her message of God's forgiveness. Corrie couldn't shake it. All of the memories of the camp filled her mind and her heart. She couldn't lift her hand from her side. Despite God's faithfulness and provision, despite all she knew and preached about forgiveness, Corrie could not take his hand. It was simply too much to ask her to do. She prayed, but nothing happened.

"I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. 'Jesus I cannot forgive him. Give your forgiveness.'"

"Into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that is its not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When he tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself."

This made me think again of Jack's "gift" those years ago. 6 little words. It was nothing, really, that Jack could give on his own. Jack needed the receiver of the gift to do the providing, to be the giver of LOVE.

So perhaps the only gift I can give this year is really a humble, silent prayer. For more love to love God with, and for His love to give me what I so desperately need in order to love others.


More Love.

Love More.

Love.

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Always Learning

Shortly after Rare Bird came out, a friend from my kids' old school invited me to lunch.

We mainly knew each other from the car pool line and quick hellos at school concerts, but I knew enough about Lori to know she is a big pray-er. In Christian circles we call this a "prayer warrior." I knew she had been praying about Rare Bird for more than a year, as well as praying for our family in other ways, because I had asked her to.


You see, Lori's knees hit the floor before her feet do in the mornings. And she doesn't just say, "I'll be praying for you," she does it. It doesn't matter if you are in the Target parking lot or the aisle at church, she will pray for you right then and there, and I love that about her. She is also very real, approachable, and easy to talk to.


When we met for lunch, Lori brought her journals from the time of Jack's accident.


She had something to share, but hoped I wouldn't think it was strange. I assured her that not a whole lot seems strange to me any more. Losing a child is the ultimate in strange.


Lori opened her journal and read about how God spoke to her during her prayers one morning a few days after the accident, telling her, "Go where they found him, and I will meet you there." She knew God was talking about Jack. I asked her what that was like; did she hear an audible voice? She replied that it was a clear knowing inside of her that God was speaking to her. I like thinking about how just as a sheep knows the shepherd's voice, we, too, can recognize the voice of God, especially as we spend more time with Him and know his nature.


The problem was, Lori didn't want to go to the creek. She resisted. Our small community was wracked with grief and confusion, and she didn't want to go to the spot where Jack was found. It was too sad, too hard.


She put it off, but one day, upon driving over the road where Jack's body was found, she pulled over, parked, and walked down to sit in the (dry) creek bed, the steep banks looming up on either side of her.

"Okay, God, I'm here and I'm ready."


And she waited.


She said God showed her a few things pertinent to her own life and her family, but nothing about Jack. Then she looked up toward where she knew our neighborhood was, and the direction Jack's body had traveled. At that moment she saw a large bush hanging out over the side of the creek, in front of a big bend. In that bush were three cardinals, which to her had been signs of God's faithfulness during a very difficult time in her life. At that moment, God spoke to Lori's spirit again, saying,


"Before he was there, he was with me."


God was sharing with her that before Jack's body was trapped and stuck, he was already in God's presence. What Lori experienced that day mirrored what I feel in my heart, and what others have shared with me.


She also felt God was telling her the words, "Sacred Ground" about where she sat.


Lori didn't explain why she hadn't shared her journal with me three years earlier, and I didn't ask.


I just figured there must have been a good reason. That is one difference between the Anna today and the Anna of three years ago. I have started to embrace mystery, and let go of having all the answers.


I don't get to choose to have Jack safe and alive with us to adulthood.
I don't get to choose which prayers get answered in the way I want them to.
I don't even get to choose how and when comfort comes to me!

You see, with my conservative faith background,  Lori would have been the ideal, even expected, messenger to deliver God's comfort to me, and I would have surely put her story in my book.


But she didn't share it. Not then.


Yet still the comfort came. Through the Holy Spirit.  Through blog readers around the world. Through a dear friend whose spiritual side had seemed wacky to me. Through dreams and visions. Through symbols as seemingly insignificant as clouds, blue jays, songs on the radio, and now, three years later, the hearts I seem to find everywhere around me.


I believe that if God wants to tell us something, in this case an assurance that Jack was with his Heavenly Father almost immediately, His message will get through. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."


I wonder if  this was a case of my being stretched, personally, so that when the time came for me to use my broken heart to start reaching out to many other grievers, I would be able to listen to their experiences solely with love and not skepticism, even if their experiences differed widely from my own. Perhaps it was so that I would have to trust that the examples I put in my book would be the right ones to touch readers in a way they needed.

I don't know. It's a mystery.


But I am grateful to Lori, who listens to God. I am grateful to God, who finds ways to get through to us again and again. And I'm grateful to YOU, for being here with me.

Amen

Heart Issues

Four year old Margaret started to cry in her booster seat. I looked in the rear view mirror. “What’s the matter?” I figured a tag was poking her, her socks weren't "just right," or she was hungry. With a defeated, gaspy cry, she answered, “Sometimes…sometimes I just have a hard time loving Jesus.” Woah. This was not even close to anything I expected to hear.

I had no immediate answer for her, so I turned it over to Jack, in the “way back” of the minivan. I didn’t know if he’d been listening, but I said, “Jack, is there anything you could say to Margaret?” I was used to his surprising us with wisdom and a near-adult understanding of issues. Maybe he had learned something in school that would give her comfort. I don’t know, but I knew I had nothing.

He responded quickly, “Well, I always knew that about you, Margaret…” Uh oh. Not what I’d been hoping for. Little boy Jack doled out judgment, not comfort, giving his sister the absolute last thing she needed. Maybe Margaret didn’t seem as devout as he did at all of six years old. Maybe he’d seen her do one too many shimmy dances  and donkey kicks during nightly prayers. Who knows? But in that instant, I saw in Jack’s response the response of so many people, the assumption that he could see into someone else’s heart.

I redirected the conversation, but not before saying, “You know what, Margaret?  Sometimes I have a hard time loving Jesus, too. I can’t see Him. It’s hard to love someone I can’t touch and feel.” I was 31 years older than Margaret, but in that moment, in her vulnerability, I knew she spoke a truth shared by me and by many.

And Jack’s reaction, although shocking at the time, reminds me of how often we judge, thinking we have a window into each other’s hearts. Thinking it’s our place to determine how devoted someone else is, rather than focusing on our own heart condition.  It's uncharitable, and unbiblical, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s (4 year old sister's) eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

I suppose, perhaps, that people think I have a strong faith. But just last week I had a really hard time loving Jesus. I begged Him to help make an impossible situation better, but it felt like I was speaking into the darkness. I told Him I trusted Him, but it was just so hard and scary. Much of what was going on felt far too close to almost 3 years ago when our world came crashing down, when our prayers weren't answered in the way we wanted.

And yet He came through. Man, did He come through, in powerful and miraculous ways! But what I've learned, and am still learning, is that He somehow comes through even when things don't turn out the way we want. Even when we are neglecting to address the planks in our eyes. And even when we have a hard time loving Him.

Wonder-filled Wednesday: Safe

On the hottest day of the year, the summer after we lost Jack, my friend Cindy and I hang out at her house, spending time together while Margaret and Cindy’s kids are at Bible camp. She shows me around her beautiful yard with its stone retaining walls built by her husband, the fish pond, the new back deck, and the enormous shade trees.

Cindy tells me that she felt Jack’s presence the day before as she stood in her garden. I don't really know what this means, because it hasn't happened to me, so I ask for details.

"I can't really explain it, Anna, but I got the impression Jack was letting me know he was protecting our house."

I don't know what to say. Why would he protect her HOUSE, not her FAMILY? And protect it from WHAT?  A suburban summer? And isn't GOD the one who protects? Or maybe His angels? Cindy doesn’t know what it means either. We shrug and give each other a “What the heck?” face, as we have many times since Sept 8, realizing how little we understand about this life and the next. The mystery and surprises keep piling up, so what’s one more thing?

I go to pick up Margaret, and think nothing more of our conversation.

About five hours later, a freak thunderstorm storm called a Derecho rises suddenly in our region. It comes with very little warning, just like the fateful storm we’d had in September. In fact, Tim is out playing softball with his church league. They quickly call the game, and Tim has a frightening, dangerous drive home amid lightning, crackling power lines, and falling tree branches. Winds of 60-80 miles an hour tear through our region. Nearly 1 million people in the DC area will lose power tonight.

Cindy quickly returns from a neighborhood party just down the street as soon as the storm rises up. Her kids are by themselves, and she doesn't want them to be frightened if the power goes out. They hunker down.

Their next door neighbor, who had been in his driveway packing his car for a beach trip, stands on his front stoop to watch the crazy weather-- a brilliant show of lightning and hot, swirling wind. He hears movement at Cindy’s house and sees her enormous oak trees begin to pop, crack, and teeter in the wind. He sees them start falling directly toward Cindy’s house, then reverse and fall toward the street instead.

The wreckage includes downed trees with nearly 10 foot root balls reaching up toward the second story of her house, the beautiful stone walls knocked over and the irrigation system pulled up. From the street you can now barely see her house, and her yard looks nothing like the yard I'd seen at four that afternoon.

It will take several months, annoying insurance claims and many workmen to get Cindy's yard back in order. The only tree that hits the house is a smaller one from the neighbor’s yard that damages the garage roof.

The body of the house is completely untouched. Cindy and her kids are inside and will be unaware of the strange scene her neighbor witnesses until the next day when they compare storm stories.

Amidst the wreckage stands a small black lamppost, upright, untouched, and still tied with a royal blue “Jack ribbon” from the previous September.



Oak tree fell toward street:

Look how close this one was to the house:

No longer a clear view of house from street because of all the trees and limbs down:

 You can barely see the house. Cindy's husband is standing in front of garage. The lamp post is in the middle of the fallen trees on the left:

Lean in or Cut and Run?

 

Friday, Tim and I climbed into the car after an ugly argument. Margaret was already at the campground  a few hours away with my sister's family. This trip was starting so differently from those in the past: big fight, no Jack, no Margaret, no Shadow. Just two angry grown ups wondering why we were even bothering. On those other trips, I'd pray out loud as we sat in our driveway "Please God keep our family safe and bless our time together."  We'd pull onto our street, and right after we'd round the first corner, Tim would pat the top of his head, then his pocket, and we'd turn around to get his glasses that sat on the tray next to the TV remotes. The kids and I would laugh. The rhythm of those trips was predictable. Now, nothing is.

I thought of the mother of the murdered girl in "The Lovely Bones" who cut and ran. She ditched her family and went out west to work in a vineyard. I did not respect her decision, although I could see why she'd made it. It felt tempting as Tim and I began our drive. But I'm more of a stay-er, a sifter, a sorter, than someone who runs away. Usually.

We could have bagged this trip again, the way we did last summer, but we really, really wanted to try it. The tension between us diffused and was gone by the time we hit the curvy mountain roads and pulled up to our camping spot. A handful of teenage boys, including Jack's favorite cousin, tossed a ball around and grabbed cheese balls by the handful out of a huge plastic barrel. Ouch.

Margaret and the rest of the crew were about to go tubing on the river. I hadn't seen her in almost a week, so I said I'd go too, even though I was nervous. I wanted to reconnect and be brave. Margaret and her cousin pulled out ahead of us with the teenagers and adults, and I didn't see them again.

Before I knew it, I was sharing a raft with three very chatty elementary aged kids we'd known for years but only saw on these trips. Once we started down the river, there would be no getting out for the next two hours; we just had to float where the river took us. No cutting and running here. Our first camping trip without Jack, at our same familiar campsite. Surrounded by beautiful, suntanned teen aged boys. Floating on a river of.....WATER....and being charged with keeping three kids alive. It was a lot. 

In some ways it couldn't have been better. I had to stay focused on the children, so I was less focused on missing Jack. Also, little kids have no filters, so our conversations ranged from the joys of peeing in a river to "I'm just so sorry Jack died." "We miss Jack." "What happened to Jack?" "Does a body keep growing once it's buried in the ground?" I explained that Jack's body was cremated, which means it was burned up not buried. "I'd hate to have to watch that," said one of my little buddies and I agreed that I would too. We talked a little about God and a lot about their classmates at school and spiders. It felt good to just get it all out there. How many times have I wanted to say to someone, "I'm sorry so and so died" but have held back?

On the raft, I had to be the responsible adult, the cheerleader, the motivator, not just the broken one, and it felt good.

A huge bald eagle swooped down and sailed right over us then on up the river. We whooped and hollered. Nature was beautiful. Yes, it was dangerous, and unpredictable, but it was also good.

At one point our raft got hung up on a tree stump in the water. This had never happened to me before. I couldn't dislodge it for some time, and I became afraid. The wide, peaceful river was NOTHING like the raging creek that took Jack's life. Nothing. But I was still scared. It had started to rain. We decided we were: cold, tired, scared, hungry, and we all had to pee. During our stuck time, as the water rushed around me and I stood on slippery rocks in the river trying to dislodge the raft, I told the kids that this would be a great time for us all to pee, so we did, and we laughed, our teeth chattering and lips turning blue.

A few minutes later, we were safely ashore again, ready for campfires, fried food, and lightning bugs.

Last year this trip would have been too much. This year it was do-able.

This whole spring and summer has been about making decisions about our family's future. It has been a mix of discerning when to revisit the traditions of the past and when to cut and run. There is not one right way.

But we are glad we choose to camp.

p.s.
When we got off the rafts, the rain stopped and we had a rainbow!

Then, when we glanced at this photo my nephew took of the fire, we thought the guy on the right looked a wee bit familiar. What do YOU think?

We  now have a Facebook page! Would you "like" An Inch of Gray on Facebook?

Under the Yucatan Sky

 The stars shone more brightly than I’d ever seen before. We were so far from a city, a town, or any electricity, that we were able to make out individual stars against the inky black sky in a way that I was unable to do at home in the suburbs of D.C. I stood surrounded by Mayan women in traditional embroidered cotton dresses. I wore one too against my sunburned skin.

It was our last night in this remote Mayan village on the Yucatan Peninsula. For one week of our two week trip, we’d been mixing cement, gravel and water on the ground, hauling it in buckets to the church rooftop, and pouring it on top of the cinderblocks and beams we'd put there. The villagers had taken years to build the walls of the building out of rocks and cement, but they didn't have the resources to put a roof on the church. The process had to be done quickly, all at once and at great expense, whereas the walls were built over time, rock by rock.

It was 1985 and this was my church youth group’s first international mission trip. I was the youngest participant at 15. It had been a week of hard work, laughter, and inspiration, and next week we’d head to a different village to do it again. Sleeping in a hammock in a thatch hut, turning over my steel toed work boots each morning to shake out wayward scorpions, and belting out Barry Manilow tunes while hoisting buckets of concretet overhead gave me an experience of a lifetime.

My best self showed up here. Not my vain, petty, self-conscious self. But a girl who could look beyond her physical comfort for just a little while, and be connected to God and His people. Trench latrines didn't bother me, and showering fully dressed outside in the rain during afternoon thunderstorms made me feel cleaner than my shower at home. I felt born for this.

Standing among the short Mayan women, I felt tall even at just 5.5. But I also felt small. For the first time I was experiencing a world beyond my suburban lifestyle, and I was experiencing God beyond Sunday School classes and youth group.

I was among people who believed in God’s provision, in miracles, and the transforming power of faith not as an add-on to their regular, busy lives, but as the cornerstone. Their everything. Not for a week, but every day.

I thought of the church walls as a metaphor for a daily life of faith, little by little, growing and reaching toward the sky.

As we stood outside that night, looking at the dark sky, cuddling the swaddled babies one last time, we said our goodbyes. Even though I would come back year after year, it would not be to this village ever again. The women said something in Mayan, and someone translated it into Spanish. One of the Spanish speakers in our group repeated it in English, “Until we meet again in heaven, Until we meet again in heaven.”

And I couldn’t fathom in this great big world that I’d see these new friends again. I wasn’t even sure that’s how it all worked, but I knew that they loved God, and I loved God, so we were connected.

 Under the Yucatan sky.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

So, in going through folders of the kids' stuff last week, I found some more gems to share with you. One is a "song" written by 4 year old Jack. And by song, I mean non-rhyming stream of consciousness. And by "written," I mean sung to me as I furiously struggled to write it all down.

And, in his little preschool way of being on a roll and having my undivided attention, Jack went on for a good four pages. He riffs about God, the Bible, Adam and Eve, Jonah, hitting, and going potty. Wishing I could hear his little baby voice rocking out to this song, but I'm glad I have it written down.

I thought you would especially like the chorus,

"If you're lost, God can find you
If you're lost, God sure can!"

And some verses:

"Everyone as a heart inside you
So if you're lost
He never takes his eyes off you
When He's looking at you
He's looking at everyone in the world"

"So If you're lost, God can find you
If you're lost, God sure can!"

"I'm telling you the truth, I'm telling the truth again
So really God is looking at you the whole day long
He never takes his eyes off you
He is everywhere"

"If you're lost, God can find you
If you're lost, God sure can!"

"If you're up in Heaven, you'll never bump your head
fall down the stairs
or have to go potty again
But down here you have to do those things"

"And Still God can find you
Whenever you're lost God can really find you
He can see inside your heart
Try to make people with really small hearts really
do good instead of bad"

And a safety tip:

"If Jesus tells you to do something, he's telling you the right thing
but not anyone else
If someone tells you to get in his car, don't do it."

"If you're lost, God can find you
If you're lost, God sure can!"

We do believe that when Jack was lost in the water, God never took His eyes off of him. And if you are feeling lost, He can find you, too.

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey, I mean Jack and Margaret's Mom

I was spending time with a friend last week and we were talking about Jack's accident. I asked her why people think I have so much faith when I feel as if I have far less than I've ever had in my life. She responded, "It pours out of you, Anna. It's just there." Hmmm. Anger? I can see that pouring out of me right now. Disappointment? Got it. But faith? I'm not so sure.

I've been thinking about this a lot, because it is undeniable that Jack's death is having a profound spiritual effect on people by challenging them to look outside the comforts and conflicts of middle class suburban life and ask questions like, "Why did this happen?" "What does this mean to ME?" "When the body dies, is that IT?" "How does a family get through this?" "Why do bad things happen to good people?" and even, "Why do GOOD things happen to BAD people?" It is having this effect on me, too, just with a few more curse words thrown in.

Through this blog I've been honored to share many of the amazing signs of comfort from God that have followed Jack's death. Blog readers have graciously shared their own. These strange occurrences have again and again shown us that love does not die. That Jack's soul lives on. That what I said I believed...wow...is really true!

When I think of Jack's impact, and its spiritual emphasis, I think of prayer after prayer uttered in love and despair on our behalf since September, many from folks who wouldn't consider themselves to be "pray-ers" at all. Babies baptized. Young people looking for more than just transitory joy. Parents looking at their kids as gifts, not just as "gifted." People returning to church, or even going for the first time. Hurt, disillusioned souls being willing to open their hearts, just a little bit more, to a God they felt had let them down or deserted them. People receiving comfort at their own loved one's deaths with the promise of "something more." People wanting "what we have" even when we have lost so much.

When asked by someone why she had started attending church and reading the Bible, a dear friend of mine answered, "Why, Jack, of course!"

So... many, many people have felt drawn closer to God because of Jack, a boy who believed that, "Nothing is Impossible with God." For that I'm awestruck and grateful.

On the other hand, there are a lot of folks who have been thrust into a spiritual CRISIS over Jack's death. I get this too. It may sound so crazy, since terribly tragic and unfair things happen every second of every day and on a much larger scale, but "Why, God? Why Jack?" has been a common refrain.

My favorite Bible verse since I was a preteen has been, "I believe. Help my unbelief," and that is the tension or balance I have lived with every single day, although much more so since September 8th.

I think about how hard it is for me to take communion or to worship at church right now. For me, there's just one broken body I think about these days. Oh how broken. And not even broken to save the world.

So while there is hope and comfort and mystery and a peace that passes all understanding, there's also a profound sense of confusion, disappointment, and a need to realign what what we thought we believed, to what we believe. To hang in there in a life of faith, despite a lack of understanding and acceptance. Despite the trauma of going to a Memorial Day festival surrounded by every 7th and 8th grade boy in the tri-state area.

Closer to God/farther than ever. "I believe/ Help my unbelief." Comfort/despair.

Then thing is, I guess I CAN see what my friend sees, that even in this disappointment, there is some faith. My profound disappointment has an OBJECT-- an object big enough to handle my questions and my disappointment. A God who graciously gives me comfort even while withholding the answer to,"Why Jack?"

And here's the thing. I know I'm his mom saying this, but Jack matters. Not more than someone else. Not less. I am very fortunate for this blog, this forum, which not every bereaved parent has, in order to see the difference Jack makes, that each life makes.

And if in that mattering, or counting for something, we are driven to our knees in seeking God, or even driven to shaking our fists at him in anger, then that is an act of faith. And I think Jack would like that.

Prodigal Ponderings

I've never liked the parable of The Prodigal Son (Luke 15). I know it gives so many people hope and assurance of the abundant love and forgiveness of God as the father races to welcome home his dissolute son who had spurned him and thrown his life away. Problem is, I've always identified with the older brother in the story, the one who stayed home and was loyal and obedient, and that son doesn't come off looking very good.

It's clear in the Bible that the older son doesn't recognize the father's true character and wants to organize the world according to what he thinks is fair and what's not. He feels hurt and disappointed to see his father lavish love on the younger son when he returns from his life of debauchery. There's a "What about me?" quality in the older brother's response that resonates in my life.

As a kid, I wanted to be my parents' favorite, and I thought I deserved to be because I was a rule follower. When my siblings, especially my sister, did anything wrong, I'd be quick to point it out, thinking this would win me brownie points. Yes, once I even rang the neighbors' door bell to inform them, an older couple, that, "My sister picks her boogers and eats them!" For some reason, they gave me strange looks, and I walked home perturbed.

I tried to help around the house, not so much to ease my mother's burden, but to look good. A glance at an Easter picture of the three siblings from around this time will show you two kids smiling at the camera, and another looking at her siblings' baskets to see if there's been an equitable chocolate distribution.

I didn't understand at the time that we love our children differently, because they are unique, but that it wasn't some big contest.

Whatever I did could not make my parents love me more or love my siblings less. I wss keeping score in an exhausting game of tallying, but my parents weren't. This irked me, because I wanted to live in a world that made sense to me, with neat lines and graphs and deposits and withdrawals. I helped around the house. I could find my shoes. My homework sheets were uncrumpled. I did not want to live in a world where good things happened to "bad people", and in my protected suburban life as a 10 year old with an unfortunate Dorothy Hamill haircut and a year older sister who looked like Farrah Fawcett, I thought I knew who should land squarely in the "bad" category. Life was so unfair!

I learned that my parents were showing me what God's love was like. No amount of striving on my part made a difference, and it was, in fact, embittering and exhausting.

My way left no room for grace and forgiveness. My way put God in a little legalistic box of my making.

And even though I grew and changed (and my sister became my best friend!) I stayed pretty much on this course, wanting to be good and be obedient. It fit with my personality. A life on the wild side just seemed too stressful and out of character to me. When I'd hear about the younger son sowing his wild oats in the parable, well, actually being reduced to eating food out of a pig's trough, my heart would race and I felt like I would get a rash.

Now, after Jack's death, I wonder if deep down inside, I thought that following rules and being a "good girl" would/could/should protect my family and me from heartache. It seems so simplistic, so ridiculous, but I think my righteous indignation that good things happened to bad people (the younger son in the Bible) was really a desire to keep bad things from happening to good people (me, of course!)

So stupid, so flawed. So untrue.

I know that's not the way of this world. Horrible things happen to good people. Children in Africa being preyed upon by warlords. Kids with cancer. Sex slavery. Chronic illness. And on and on and on.

But in my little suburban world, where Dorothy Hamill and Farrah Fawcett may have given way foil highlights and Brazilian blowouts, but where much has stayed the same, I wonder if in trying to be good, or hoping to keep life "fair" I was grasping for control over something I never had any control over in the first place.