(Written January 12, 2018)
There sits in my room a special box, a black box. The lid of this box contains frames to store various sized photographs. While only one frame has been filled, I intend to display our favorite pictures with Mike. Though still incomplete, the contents of this box are priceless. For lack of a better name I call it “the Daddy box” as it’s purpose is to store precious belongings of Chloe and Caleb’s daddy.
It’s hard to believe that it has been a year since I spent those final moments laying beside my beloved husband on his hospice bed, making him a series of promises. Knowing that one of Mike’s greatest concerns about departing this life to be with Christ was the probability of his children not knowing their dad, one of my promises was that I would make sure that Chloe and Caleb knew him. Since Mike went home to Heaven I’ve been trying to be very intentional about keeping that promise. “The daddy box” is but one of the ways I have endeavored to help Chloe and Caleb know their dad as they grow up.
In the box I have a variety of items, including: Mike’s wallet, passport, wedding rings, photographs, letters, journals, cards, a cd of his last sermon, and so on. My prayer is that this special box would help them know their daddy a bit more–factual information like his height, eye color, birthday, where he had travelled, the size of his ring finger, but also personal information like the prayers he had prayed, the different ways God spoke to him about our relationship throughout our dating years, the ways God spoke to him about Ireland, the way he passionately and confidently taught God’s word, his Biblical perspective on suffering, his romantic side, his goofy side, and so on. Undoubtedly as I continue to find more precious mementos, the box will prove to be too small. Nevertheless, as I think about this box, I realize that Mike was and is so much more than what is represented in this little box. It is a small part of him, but it certainly does not paint him fully.
As I was pondering this reality, God reminded me of another box that I have had great difficulty trying to maintain these last twenty-seven years. It is a box that for the purpose of this post I’ll call the “Abba Box.” While this is not a tangible box on display in my room, it is a box that resides in a prominent place of my heart. The contents of the box represent all that I have come to know about my Abba, my Heavenly Father. The treasures in this box include scriptures that I have stored away, passages that contain factual information about who He is and what He has done, personal information about what pleases Him and what grieves Him, as well as various character attributes and directives. There are memories, “photographs” if you will, of important experiences and distinct encounters I’ve had with the Lord. There are prayers that I have prayed and seen answered. There are promises and special gifts that the Lord has given to me over the years; evidence of His goodness, His lovingkindness and His thoughts towards me.
I say this box has been difficult to maintain because at various junctures in my life, God has broken my box. Usually this would occur when God moved in a way that I was not expecting based on all the knowledge of Him that I had acquired and filed away. As devastating as it may have felt at some of those junctures, I recognize that He was faithfully showing me that the box I had put together was not always accurate and certainly not a full representation of Him.
In all honesty, Mike’s entrance into Heaven left me with a broken “Abba Box”. I had not made room for this particular circumstance to be added. This “photograph” for my “Abba Box” was like one of those beautifully engraved images found at the heart of one of those three dimensional photo crystals that you may have seen displayed over an LED light at a mall kiosk. The trouble was that this “memento” was much heavier and bulkier than the “photograph” of the miraculous healing for which I had been waiting to add. While the design of this crystal treasure is unquestionably magnificent, the image it bears evokes a most painful memory. As much as I’d like to hide that image from sight, I recognize that there is a priceless beauty to it that can only be appreciated when I allow God to shine through, exposing all of the dimensions.
Naturally, the temptation when your box gets broken is to scrap the project altogether, and walk away from the pursuit of knowing God. But having tasted and seen that He is indeed good time and time again throughout my life (Psalm 34:8), I’ve discovered that these broken boxes are invitations to go DEEPER. In allowing God to shine through my greatest pain, He has allowed me to know Him all the better. I have come to truly know Him as my comforter, my provider, my husband, and my shelter at a depth to which I had never plummeted and would not have reached otherwise. Even still, there is so much more to know of Him.
Yes, just as Chloe and Caleb’s daddy is exceedingly greater than the valuable treasures I’ve stored away in a box, so is my Abba. I anticipate down the road that the box I have compiled will fall short in some ways of my children’s desires to know their daddy. I suspect they will press me and other members of the family and our friends for more details than this box offers them. In the same way, I pray that I would never become prideful or grow complacent, but that I would keep pressing on to know the Lord.
“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.”
– Hosea 6:3 –
One thought that does excite me is that while I know Him in part now, there is a day coming where I will know my Abba just as I am known. So it will be for Chloe and Caleb with their daddy– a day is coming when they will know their daddy fully, despite my shortcomings on such a task. They will see him and talk with him as a result of the blessed hope we have been given through Jesus, that just as He rose, we who have placed our faith in Him will rise with Him.
12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
– 1 Corinthians 13:12 –
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13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
– 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 –