In a farmhouse in northeast South Dakota there is a six year old girl sitting on a policeman’s lap, with a blanket wrapped tightly around her. Even though it’s a cold December night outside the heat from the wood stove prompted her to go to bed in just a t-shirt and undies. She doesn’t want that strange policeman to see her in her undies, so keeping that blanket wrapped around her is one of her main concerns at the moment. That, and trying to figure out why her mom is screaming.
My heart hurts for that little girl, because I know that what the policeman is about to tell her will change her world forever. Not just change it, but flip it upside down and backwards and make her feel like a tornado and hurricane and flash flood have ripped through her life all at once, destroying everything.
My heart hurts for that little girl, not just because she’s about to find out that her dad is dead. It also hurts because I know what’s coming over the next 20 years. She’s not going to fit in very well. She’s going to get teased a lot, and will spend a lot of time not liking herself. She’ll attend a lot of funerals. So many funerals. She’ll get cancer. There are going to be times of incredible happiness and blessings mixed in there too, and that makes me excited for her. But there are going to be plenty of rough patches.
I wish I could send her a message. I wish I could tell her that it all leads to this. To a woman who can tell two girls in India that even though their father is dead they have a Heavenly Father who loves them more than they can imagine. A woman who can comfort others because she herself knows what it is to mourn. It leads to a woman who can spend the night with a new friend in a wretched government hospital because she herself knows what it’s like to be sick. It leads to a woman who is able to preach about God’s faithfulness because she’s seen it all over her life, even in the rough parts. A woman who talks about cancer, but also about the Healer. A woman who can talk about loneliness, but also the One who never leaves and never forsakes. A woman who, for every story of mourning, has a story of the One who comforts. I wish I could tell her that it leads to a woman who can love more fully and take more risks because she understands how short life really is. A woman who has a story to tell. A story that brings God glory.
I wish I could tell her all of this. Tell her to let go of bitterness and anger right away. To let go of comparisons. To understand that she is loved and that she is complete. That in all things God really does work for the good of those who love Him. Tell her to stop asking why. For goodness sake, stop asking why.
I wish I could tell her this, so she doesn’t waste any of the next 20 years mired in yuckyness. I wish I could tell her that for real, everything is going to be okay.
I wish I could tell her this.
But I can’t.
Don’t worry though. She figures it out eventually.
P.S. Love you daddy. Hope you would be proud of the woman I turned out to be.
