When I heard that Parker had died, I wasn’t sure what to think. At first, I was heartbroken. A man that had meant so much to me was gone. I thought about how I would never speak to him again, how I would never again be able to sit across from him at our favorite coffee shop and talk about what we had been learning in our marriages, and about our kids, and about God. But I didn’t want to stay in that place, because I knew that that mindset could lead to blame. And Parker certainly wouldn’t want me in that mindset, either. No, instead I tried to think like Parker would have been, had he been in my shoes.
Parker often talked about the life of David, and about what it meant to be a, “man after God’s own heart.” He loved that. And what’s better is that he actually tried, and in my opinion succeeded, to live up to that. I’m privileged to say that I saw him live it out. That said, what I loved about Parker wasn’t that he was a man after God’s own heart, but that he invited other men into that along side him. That’s what he was on fire for; that’s what Parker lived for. When we were young, Parker and I were always volunteering for different ministries and opportunities to serve. And what we almost always found was that women heavily outnumbered men in the church. He decided at an early age that he was going to change that. He never actually told me that, but there was always a gleam in his eyes when that ratio was brought up by anyone. I could tell he had a hunger for change that needed to be satisfied.
So he fought for that change. And it was a joy to fight along side him. Something else unique about Parker was that he wasn’t afraid to work in dangerous settings. That’s why he almost exclusively worked in the Northwest, where, as most of you know, he was born in. He found out in his 20’s that the Northwest was the most Kingdom deprived area of the United States. Just another statistic that made Parker hungry for change.
It’s been a long time since Parker originally embarked on those journeys. Throughout it all, it was hard to tell what was actually changing. I’m happy to say that we both did, as well as people around us, but what never changed were those goals. He stuck to them, through every slap in the face and earth-shattering failure. Parker had faith that those things were from the Father, and he chased faithfully after them. My prayers have now shifted to the men he left behind to bear the torch after him. These dreams aren’t something that can be accomplished in one lifetime, or by one person. In fact, I don’t think Parker ever planned on seeing those goals fulfilled. I think he just wanted to get the ball rolling.
And now, I rejoice in the idea that Parker is in the throne room of the Father. He no longer has to be a man after God’s own heart; he’s experiencing the heart of God now. I believe that’s the mindset Parker would want me in. Not a mindset of mourning, but a mindset of praising God, and eagerly waiting to join him in eternal praise, and readying myself to bear my cross until then.
Hopefully by now you realized that I’m not actually dead. The men of Gap Year were recently issued a sort of assignment to write our own eulogy. This wasn’t supposed to be a morbid task, but a way to get us to understand the fragility of our time here on earth, and to think about what we want said about us when we’re put in the ground. It’s written from the perspective of a friend of mine, who’ll remain anonymous.
Let’s hope it’ll still be a few decades before someone actually delivers this to a crowd for me.
