I’m on the flight home and I can’t help but sing Bethany Dillon’s “Waking up” song in my head as I peer out my air plane window and realize that I’ve been chasing the sunset across the south for the past hour home. The view is a beautiful sight- its like someone turned the flame from a gas stove upside down so that a magenta orange blends to a light tangerine that perfectly fades into a pale yellow meeting baby blue to the hottest part of the flame- a true indigo blue. On the plane I’m sitting next to my two best friends- my mom and dad. My mom sits on the isle and has been flipping through the September issue of Instyle magazine holding it up to show me cute fall coats and to have my dad smell and comment on every perfume scratch and sniff ad. My sweet dad has been sitting in the middle currently reading “Radical” by David Platt in between testing fragrances and serving as my pillow. In the past 48 hours my parents and I have watched my younger brother come in 42nd in his cross country meet in Dallas, flown to Jackson, MS to celebrate the 70th Birthday of my cousin Johnny, and drove to Memphis, TN to see my older sister’s new house and roommates. Now the three of us are flying back to DFW airport where we will part ways and I will go back to College station and they will go back to our home in Dallas. As I stare out the plane window I start to think about saying goodbye to my parents and warm tears pour down my face, so I close my eyes and pretend like I’m falling back asleep for a nap on my dad’s arm. As he feels my head hit his shoulder he reaches his hand around to pat my head, which at this point makes the tears worse so I pull my scarf up to my face to soak up the tears. I’ve been a private basket case all weekend and really all week, which I didn’t want him to know about since I know it only makes him feel worse. On Tuesday of this past week we got a call from his doctor that one of his scans showed spots, spots in new places on his liver and lung. My dad has had cancer before in his colon and this will be the second time its come up in his lung and the fourth time its come up in his liver. He has undergone countless rounds of chemo totaling up to 18 months, three surgeries, and countless hospital visits, MRIs, and CT scans. But three times prior to this he’s been pronounced “in remission”. I remember in June I gave him a hug after his last round of chemo and with tears in my eyes I said, “I feel like I’m hugging a miracle”.
Today when I press my face into my scarf and nuzzle my head to his shoulder it feels like no less of a miracle. I think I cry a little in part because I am scared to loose my dad and don’t want to know what life with out him is like. I think I cry a little in part because I do remember that his presence is such a miracle and such a gift I know of several kids who have parents die with little notice or warning. And so I can’t help but feel overwhelmed with grace and mercy. Who am I and who are we as a family that the God of the universe would hear our cries. We are but broken and unclean sinners. So who is God that he would shower love upon us?
Man! Our God is Creator and Power! He is Faithful and Compassionate. We are a lowly people so indebted to a God who owes us absolutely nothing, and yet he gives us His son. He saves us, and adopts us. In Him we are new and in Him we find redemption.
Sometimes things so wonderful and so undeserved make me cry. Like a sweet gift or an ‘I love you’ after a big fight or an ‘I’m still proud of you’ after a big disappointment. Those things just make me well up inside, probably because grace and the math of grace I will never fully comprehend. And probably because grace is such a beautiful picture of the Lord that when we see it demonstrated I feel like I’m being shown a little more of his face.
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