A letter

Along with the many cards that people sent, I had many a letter to read. Heartfelt, sorrow filled letters. Wow. Some who had walked this road... I had no idea. Many wanted to praise me and my husband for our strength. That was somehow the most comforting to me. If they could only know, know how incredibly "not strong" I felt. So, what they saw, make no mistake, was an amazing God carrying us. It was a confirmation to what I thought was happening, but didn't know for sure. God had sustained us every day so far. What an amazing thing. I was too overwhelmed to even know for sure. It was a fog. So to read that people saw strength... wow.

Another card that was sent said "Courage is fear that has said it's prayers." Yes, that's it.
My brother sent a letter that I read over and over again. I wanted to share it with you. It goes beyond Phoenix...

"I wanted to assuage your grief with nice images rendered by beautifully placed words and ideas. Unfortunately, I am too close. My words just won't come, and if they did , they would be painfully insufficient.

Did you ever notice that when you hear something that is not just true, but THE TRUTH, that it seldom feels like you are hearing it for the first time? From the moment we can comprehend language, The TRUTH sounds different to us. It feels more like remembering something than learning it. That is why words often times only limit Truth when it is shouted most loudly from a melody, a moment of silence, a sunrise, or a child who doesn't yet have words.

Among the really great writers and poets there is a sense that they are "finding" the poem, not "making it up" or "creating it" but "finding" it. They pull magic that was already there out from in between the cracks of life. They delve into our memories and hopes and find the eternity between the minutes and seconds by which we measure our lives.

It takes effort to find the poetry. The work can be dirty, bloody, and at times fruitless. There are a few things I have learned in searching though. One, you will find it long before you can put it into words, and the more you find, the harder it is to explain. Two, any fragment of the poetry you stumble across will change you, it always does. Three, find the poetry and inevitably, you will find the hand of God.

We count our lives away in minutes and seconds. We time our waking, eating, sleeping, and living. We schedule our love, our celebration, our fellowship. Every minute and second we schedule, track, and count down, we are aging, dying. The moments you discover the poetry though, are eternal, there are no minutes or seconds to them and there is no dying or aging...only pure life. These are those few moments in the tangible presence of God.

Most of us are rich in minutes and seconds, but poor in eternity. Rich in words, but lacking in poetry. Phoenix won't likely have the mass of minutes and seconds that the rest of us waste so much of. I know that any of us would give him some of ours if we could. But, even if we could give him eighty years full of minutes and seconds, we could not come close to the gift that he is giving us. You see every moment we have with him IS, and will be eternal. His coming shatters our clocks and schedules with breathtaking eternal moments whose beauty will for years to come shake our minutes and seconds with TRUTH and POETRY.

I don't expect any of us will be able to voice the poetry in this moment for years to come, especially not you. But, I can promise you it is there. Just remember, you can find it before you can explain it, it will change you, and in between these minutes and seconds that we rue, is the eternal hand of God, composing beauty we cannot now comprehend.

God smiles from ear to ear thinking of you. He laughs thinking of your brave ability to love and cherish life in the face of death. It rebukes the curse that affects the rest of the world, it is a resounding threat to the kingdom of darkness. Your attitude now is reminiscent of Christ's in Gethsemane when he said "not my will, but yours be done." The hope we carry in us says to the world, "Death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory?!" You truly carry around the death and resurrection of Christ within you.

I admire you. The magic of motherhood is a secret magic that I will never know anyway. The magic you are working now is a towering achievement even for motherhood. I can't write the poem yet, I doubt I will ever have the eloquence, but I can feel it and I know it is there. I love you."