I DON'T UNDERSTAND
We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us, in the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 6:19
The Message
And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding…
Hebrews 6:3
NLT
Dear Dad,
There is so much I do not understand. So much that remains a mystery to me, veiled by a mist of what I don’t know, can’t grasp, don’t like.
I don’t understand why you, of all people, would suffer.
Why every breath comes as a gasp, why talking ends in spasms of body wrenching, back heaving coughing, why you must remain tethered to that tube of oxygen in order to breathe at all.
I don’t understand why we have to say good-bye.
Why, after having you always there; my stability, my fixer of broken things, my logic-minded advisor— why soon I won’t.
You, who have spent the better part of your life explaining why, showing how, teaching me over and over again the way to do life in fine, ordered, rightness— won’t be with me anymore.
I don’t understand why life ends in death, why you have to go away soon, why you can’t stay and watch my grandsons be like you, why you can’t keep holding my hand and squeezing it just so I know you’re with me.
I don’t understand why Mom will be alone.
After all these years of sticking by your side, or figuring it out, of learning and growing so that your differences are all ironed into one workable weave of cloth like a blanket around these generations to follow. Why will mom have to end life alone?
And what’s more, I don’t like it, not one bit. I want you to stay. I want you strong, hiking in your mountains, taking me with you, talking to me about my dreams, telling me I can do this, telling me I’ve made you proud.
Oh Dad, I do not understand.
And maybe that’s okay. Maybe I don’t have to get this right.
Maybe having you all these years as my dad has shown me that I don’t have to understand, that I can hold on and trust. That clinging is okay because the Father does understand even when I don’t and He can be trusted because He is like you… or maybe it’s that you are like Him.
Maybe learning to trust you has taught me how to trust the One you trust.
And maybe someday I will understand. Maybe someday I’ll smile and nod and even laugh at God’s audacity to take the incomprehensible and make it good.
I don’t understand, Dad, but I trust the One who does, and for that, I will be forever grateful.
From my heart,
Di