Weight of Glory

Mason would have been 17 today.

I was looking at old pictures and came across this one. 

I remember some vague things about this mom. 

She was tired (she had no idea what tired really was back then) but she was happy. She was homeschooling her kids, living where the weather was basically perfection and took impromptu trips to the beach about every week, stopping for the best donuts ever on the way. (She also had no idea about seed oils back then)

She wished her hair was thicker and held curl better (oh girl, just you wait) and that her waistline was smaller (ha! just wait some more). She was wrecked a little by insomnia, but she could still function. Caffeine didn’t give her migraines back then.

She wore sandals about 300 days out of the year and had the dearest group of friends a girl could ask for. It was easy to be real, to be honest. To look to the people around her for wisdom and accountability. She did life with some really amazing humans. 

The moments were rich and the memories were deep. 

Her life was pretty near perfect. 

This was Mother’s Day 2014. The last one she would have where her heart wouldn’t ache. What would she say if I whispered in her ear what the next few months would hold for her? That her sweet little boy with that sparkle in his eyes would be ripped from her arms a few days after his next birthday.

What would she say if she knew about the deep oppression of grief and how it would simply suck the life right out of her. That the simplest things like making lunch for her kids would feel like her own personal Everest. What would she say if I shattered her idyllic little world where toys cluttered her hall and laughter echoed over her backyard fence, where she was cocooned in a very blissful, very false sense of safety and security. 

What would she say if I told her the sound of her children crying over the loss of their brother would become the worst sound in her memory? Or that things like birthdays and holidays and family pictures would always punch her in the gut and leave her gasping for air?

What would she say if I told her not even 9 years after burying her son, when the loss still feels so raw like a fresh scrape on sensitive skin, her husband would be diagnosed with cancer. And what would she say if I told her the cancer battle lingered and appeared more and more ominous as the dreary days stretched on? 

I’m not sure what she’d say. I’m glad she didn’t know. That way she could enjoy the day she had without worrying about the future. She could laugh at the days to come and snuggle with her kids and take pictures and read books and listen to endless, meaningless knock knock jokes without letting her mind wander to the impending doom that would blanket her family. 

But. If she did know, I hope she would say:

And yet, God is good. 

He’s not going to leave me.

He works the good in all things, even the really, really horrible ones.

He is sovereign and righteous and holy and I don’t have to understand the Why’s of life as long as I keep my focus on the Who. 

And I hope it would drive her straight to her knees. That her prayers would make up the very fiber of her being. That she would fight for her family. That she would speak truth into her kids hearts and take every chance she could to whisper about hope and redemption and peace so that the foundation of her family could be fortified to withstand the jarring rattle of the enemy’s assaults. 

I know what she would want to do. She would want to plug her ears and close her eyes and shake her head and then pick up her sweet little boy and run with all her might from the beast threatening to devour him. 

She would want to say, “Not my kid. Not my nightmare. Not my home.”

But I hope, and I believe, what she would do… is fight.

That she would recognize that perfection on this earth is never promised but that hope in eternity is. That comfort and control are illusions that are stripped away in a moment but that the foundation of Jesus Christ will never falter. 

There’s another version of this mom. The one who has lived the number of her days. The one in the future, in eternity, looking back at the story God has written. The one that sees the completion of all of these painful stories and the precious redemption in them.

She’s the one I want to talk to. The one who buried her child and had to live this life without him. The one who walked the cancer journey alongside the love her life and sat through chemo infusions and waited continually for test results. 

What I want to know is, what would she say to me?

I think she would say:

Girl, it’s a good story. Keep living it. Keep fighting for it. Keep using it for God’s glory. It matters!

It’s not about laughing at the days to come, but about having joy for the future no matter the circumstances.

Fight the good fight.

Finish the race.

It’s all redeemed. 

There is a weight of glory I can’t even describe. And it’s pretty fantastic.

It’s worth it. All of it. You’ll see.