We ran today. We ran hard. I
fought for every inch of ground I took and when my legs burned like battery
acid and my lungs ached, unable to draw even one more useful – I felt nothing
but gratitude. I felt my heart open up. I smelled the burning trees, felt the
air swish under me as I dropped from root to root. Each hill we took invited me
to struggle and I thanked every hill for the chance.
It isn’t enough to say, be
grateful for your health. It’s beyond that. God invites us in. He doesn’t use
words. God brings us to life in silence and he invites us back home in deeper
silence.
A friend of mine’s 15 year
old daughter died unexpectedly last week. And I came to understand that there
was a level of grief so much deeper than anything I had ever felt. I know this
to be true because I could not even imagine the breath and horror of her grief.
I could not even fit the enormity of her grief I my mind. I didn’t go to the
memorial or funeral. I didn’t think I could stand the sight of her grieving. It
would be so wretched. She is the epitome of a “good girl”. You know what I
mean? She sets out every day to do right in the world.
Her grief would be like a
tsunami sweeping over an ocean side city, washing away everything we recognize
as human life: every person, every building, stone foundation, every tiny
scrap, even the air would be sucked away. Someone told me they saw her, my
friend, at the wake in her stocking feet, being helped out of a sitting room.
This person said her eyes were blank. This same person hugged my friend’s
husband and that he thanked her and walked away and then when she looked back,
she saw him slumped into a chair, weeping. This giant of a man, holding the
whole world collapsing around his wife, my friend.
It isn’t a matter of saying
God did this or didn’t do this. Is there reason this little girl died or no
reason at all. I cannot imagine living passed losing a child. I’m tough but I
would be the first person gone to the bottle or rope. There is simply what
comes next? My friend will come back to work. She will be grim but with time
her suffering will slowly be folded away with her daughter’s bed sheets and
clothes. She is, after all, a good girl. We are most ourselves when things go
wrong.
Life is like that, a furnace
full of molten iron we must reach into it and lift out what we need. We must
mold it until it cools into our shaping hands. These tools must become us.
We ran hard today. I hope it
was hard enough.
