My Dearest Pine Tree,
I feel I need to apologize to you for my behavior yesterday. It was nothing personal. I don’t secretly hate you. I do however get pretty stressed from time to time and I am sorry you had to carry my burdens. I really did not set out to maul your trunk with a sledgehammer…these things just kind of happen at times.
It’s not you, it’s me. Some times I just get…
…lost
Pine Tree, at times, instead of confronting the things in life that make me mad, I just lash out at you instead. It doesn’t excuse it, but I can’t lie, I felt a little better after.
You see, he is my little Jack. So small and crazy and happy and mine. We prayed for him and God answered Sheri and I’s prayer in so many ways with Jack, but this next part is still hard.
I am not sure how you trees act socially (I doubt the weird trees in Lord of the Rings are good representations), but we humans like to hold onto hope a lot. If we have hope, even a glimmer or strand, it can hold a person off the cliff. It can keep the swimmer afloat. But every once in a while, the strand gets completely cut. It has to.
Sometimes hope, even a really good hope, can simply be a false hope. It can seem like that hope is what we need to hold on to, but in reality, it is the very thing we must let go. The great C.S. Lewis said once, sometimes the only way for God to prove to us that we are basing our life on a false hope is for Him to take our house of cards and smash it down. It’s a great idea, I just was not ready for how much it would hurt.
Or how bipolar I would seem to become.
Or how it felt that we won-Jack qualified for the Autism programs-so then why do I feel like we still lost?
Why does it feel sometimes like drowning where I can’t ever quite die…
But perhaps…perhaps that is the point?
Pine tree, maybe this will help. Have you ever seen the movie Moneyball? I am really not trying to add insult to injury for you by referencing a movie that involves baseball (I am sure none of the bats used in it were your relatives…). Near the end of the movie, the two main characters, GM Billy Beane (the boss) and his assistant Peter Brand, have completely turned around the Oakland As. There was momentum and this feeling that they were doing something that had never really been done before. In the end however, the team loses.
A few days later the pair are talking and Peter says to his boss that in reality, they actually won, and won big. Billy writes him off, but Peter is insistent. To prove his point, Peter goes to the film room to show him some scout footage of a minor league team in their system. On the film was a 240-pound catcher, Jeremy Brown, who is overweight and apparently perpetually scared to run past first base under any circumstances.
As the catcher steps up to the plate, he crushes the pitch. He just hits the ball solid and then all 240 jiggly pounds of him go charging to first base. However, as he gets to first, a flip switches and he decides he is going to go all out this time. He is going to chug it all the way to second…
…But he eats it about 3 steps in.
Not even a sort of stumble, he plows into the dirt and all his worst fears feel like they are coming true at once. He frantically scrambles back to first as fast as he can. Once safely back on first base, he notices that everybody is standing by him and chuckling. He then finally realizes what everyone else already knows.
He hit a home run and didn’t even realize it.
Pine Tree, I wonder if, years from this moment, Sheri and I will sit out here by you and think back on these moments. If we will sit and realize what God already knew. That in this moment, when all the clouds have gathered in my soul, that this moment is THE MOMENT.
That when we felt it all was over…
When what we feared was realized…
God stepped up to the plate of our lives, looked us square and the face and asked, “Will you trust me even now?”
And then He crushed it.
Out of the Park.
I am going to see the swath of scaring I gave you for a long time. I know you will not let me forget it. I hope though, that as the years pass and my Jack climbs your branches, you will be gentle to him. Because as I stand and out on the deck and watch him in those moments, I will remember these moments. I will remember again what the start of this journey felt like and marvel at what has become of it all.
Your scars will point me to the scars I gave Him too, but you both never gave up on me.
P.S. If you see the Roofing Hammer, pass on my condolences for not remembering where I threw him. He is probably scared in a bush and could use a kind word…
Chasing The Wild Beast 