“Thank you”.  I’ve said those words often through the years.  But the very last time I spoke them to you, we were sitting alone in a room and you had since taken your last breath.  As I gazed at your sweet tired face and slowly said ‘thank you’, something in the deepest most central place in my heart completely filled those two simple words.  The moment caught my attention.  I’ve always been sincere when I’ve said thank you, but this time felt different.  It was as if every fiber of my heart agreed and in chorus shouted what my lips quietly whispered through tears.    I am here because of you.  Thank you.

As a very young man of 24 with a conviction in his heart, you grew a family of eight children.  As the last child of eight  I’m glad you didn’t change your theology until after I was born.  That choice demanded great sacrifice in how you lived, what you did, and what you had.  Sometimes I can’t even imagine the cost to you and mom, financially, physically and emotionally.                Thank you.

There is something so surreal and final about your passing.  I think it is the reality that the book of your life has been written, and with your last breath the final chapter was finished. Nothing can be changed, added or taken away.  It is the final draft and the forever account of your days.  As a writer who was always revising and tinkering, a ‘final draft’ never seemed to be a word in your vocabulary.

In this process of losing you, I realized that life is fluid all the way until the last breath.  God made us free to be the author of our lives.  What an incredible honor, and responsibility.   As long as we are still breathing, we get to choose.  Not the circumstances always, but certainly how we will respond.  Those choices shape our relationships, our days, who we become, what we are known for, and yes, eternity.  Then one day it becomes the sum of our life.  What we leave behind.  Our legacy.  Our novel.

One of your favorite things you liked to say was, “God writes straight with crooked lines. “   I am discovering the truth of your revelation.  Infinite possibilities exist from our first breath to the last.  And all the choices that exist in the millions of breaths in between determine what our life will look like.  As long as we are breathing, we always have another shot, another chance to get it right rather than be right, to revise a chapter and with God’s help rewrite our days in a way that the crooked becomes straight. He can use it all, our great contributions as well as our mistakes to make something beautiful out of the story of our lives all the way up until the day we die.

While I can feel sad for some of the in between years where choices led you away and created distance, I can clearly see how God made those crooked lines straight in these last years.  As part of you diminished and slipped away, something else beautiful emerged as I saw relationships richly restored, treasured and enjoyed.  Before my very eyes, I saw lines straighten with every act of sacrificial love as we cared for so many of your needs the way you once did ours.

Your life is now a finished work for all to examine, admire, celebrate, and learn from.  Even after your last breath you continue to teach me.  I feel the clarion call to choose well in life, to be intentional about what my story will tell.  To partner with God in such a way that He can make my crooked lines straight.  To value what is sacred and holy in each of us, and to laugh until the end.

Dad, thank you.

With all my love