I Read My Book

I finished reading a book yesterday. That doesn’t seem earth shattering since the world is in quarantine and we have so much time on our hands. Of course it is possible to finish reading a book. But the truth is I finished my book. No I didn’t sit down and write a book. But I did pick up a keyboard and write for the past decade a blog. Leona turned my words into a book for me for Christmas then we purchased twenty four more books to share with those that could pray over this journey of loss. The blog she plucked out of my blog was the posts of losing my son to suicide. So you see reading my own story through loss was difficult to say the least. So yes I finished a book yesterday. It took me a couple weeks, a few boxes of tissue and a lot of processing and prayer. But I was so healed by this look back at what God has done through the most life changing event of my life. From the day after Ryan died, I wrote. Not everyday and not with an eye for grammar or sentence design. But I wrote out my heart, my faith, my pain, and my hope. 

Be thankful in all things is a command that Christ gave us in His word. At the beginning of my path through losing my son, I doubted how that would be possible. But looking back on this gift of time and connection was so revealing. Dare I say I am thankful for Ryan’s choice a decade ago? Not that he died and left us living life without him. But for the connections and relationships that are only possible through our loss. Ron and I are here to embrace other families who go through the pain of losing an adult child. This is not a ministry I hoped for but it is a ministry God has prepared me for. My thought was that statistically when we lost Ryan we would protect other families we love from the same path. The truth is at least a half dozen of our closest friends have endured the same pain we suffered. That we could walk with them through the process of planning a good bye celebration and be there to just hug them and pray was what I am most thankful for. Trust me I would have been so content to continue being crazy with middle school kiddos through Young Life. But that is not the ministry God had in mind for me after Ryan died. 

Another thing I noticed through reading this book of mine was my faith. Sometimes I have doubted if I ever got off the floor of being a crawling Christian. looking back I see that I have matured in my faith and I can trust in that truth. Not that I don’t lose focus and try to micromanage on my own but that I never am on my own in life. That is powerful. 

This book is now in the hands of others that I trust to pray for direction as they ignore my grammatical mistakes. God seems to be pressing me to edit and distribute His love for me to a wider audience. I am blessed that Susi and Leona are in this with me. First I thought about paying someone to edit my words but after careful prayer believe that I only trust these two with my testimony. So the task has begun to clean up without changing my story. There is a fire in my belly to get this just as it should be. Last night I stayed up until 2:00am working on it. The time has come to stop thinking someday and make this happen. I believe that if even one person draws closer to Jesus through my heart words it is worth it. This is not about making money or getting fame but showing the truth. That none of us has to walk alone through anything life throws at us. Please pray for direction as I am walking on water with this gift that God has given me. It is His story more than mine. I am just thankful that He pressed me to write before Ryan died so the routine was there to begin the day after I lost him. God has a plan and He knew just how much I would need to reflect on His love a decade before I wrote those first agonizing words.

In Him,

Joyful

3-27-20