“The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease.” Lamentations 3:22
“I can’t do this.”
His precious little mouth contorted on the one side – the way it always did when he became scared. “Mom, I’m not a first grader. I can’t do this. I need to go back to kindergarten.”
Behind his back, the window glowed with the last remnants of the sunset, signaling night…the night before school.
Chase shook his fuzzy, scarred head with each new sentence of voiced fear. After months of proudly proclaiming his being in first grade now and – including outrageous claims for privilege (“I should get to stay up late at night and watch Netflix because I’m a first-grader now, Mom.”) – the time had finally come and he felt himself unequal to the road in front of him.
His words flooded my heart as I heard echoes of my own timid voice in memory. Through his cancer, the ambulances, the hospitals, childbirth, even marriage… big things. Life things.
I can’t do this. God, I’m not ready for this.
I’m too young…
Too immature…
Too imperfect…
Too scared…
I need more time to prepare.
To get it right…
To be aware…
To make it count…
But here’s the thing with life… When I am blind-sided with my weakness and need, God is aware of the plan – my perfect life plan. And when things feel underdone and undone, out-of-nowhere, frenzied and stressed, He alone knows the ways to make them count for my good and His glory.
I knelt in front of Chase and put my hands lightly on his arms. Oh, how I wanted him to listen and connect with the words I needed to say. “Chase, you can and you will – because you are ready. It doesn’t feel like it yet, but you’re ready;” I paused, searching for the right words, “And, you are loved.”
You are loved.
In the hard moments when our brains acknowledge our good and His glory, but daily life throws gut punches that leave us lacking, gasping “I can’t do this”, it comes down to those very few words: I am loved; you are loved. These are the conduit from our head to our heart – from knowing what’s true to believing and resting in what’s good: His faithful love.
This had become a key sentence with my darling cancer survivor over the last several months. With his age and progression comes the increasing sense of “other”. He knows he looks different from those around him and often reacts differently too. He is strong, but it takes precious little for the remorse and regret to set in – and the fear too. I watch him feel unequal to the road in front of him and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that only perfect love can conquer this fear. And I know because I feel my own weakness, sadness and fear.
So, in the sunset before that August big day, as Chase lay his head down to sleep in that sixth year of a life we never thought he’d have, I grabbed the first piece of paper I could find (for it’s the words that are most important, not on what they are written) and I wrote what I believe…what I know and too often forget: You are loved. And then I tucked it, folded small into the blue top pocket of the crisp, new backpack to be found on the bus the next morning.
For truly, these words give a strength and joy like none other. And with these words, we are ready for anything life may bring – in His grace – moment by moment.
“See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1a
“Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders.” Deuteronomy 6:7-8
