The third week of January is a quiet one for me. I’ve stopped trying to predict how I’m going to feel because moving from January 21 to January 22 is like swinging across a wide chasm. Left to right, death and life, right to left, life and death. I usually end up somewhere low in the middle, holding on and waiting for the 23rd.
Thankfully, I’ve learned that I can expect the promise of God’s presence, thick like a braided rope, to sweep across the week with me. Every year He shows up gently, kindly, personally to my side and I remember what He told me seven years ago, “We walk this thing together.”
Somewhere between Rhett’s diagnosis and his going ahead of us, I picked up the idea of listening for the thump of a shepherd’s staff against the ground in my mind. These thumps are signs that God is near, especially when I can’t see Him or really anything up ahead. “Even when the way goes through Death Valley,” Psalm 23 reads, “I’m not afraid when you walk at my side. Your trusty shepherd’s crook makes me feel secure.”
“Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump,” the staff says. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”
Last week didn’t prove to be any different than the years before it. Every day I took notes of the ways God laced His presence into the wide expanse of the week. Here are some of the thumps I heard along to and through January 21:
January 16:
-Father Mike Schmitz talked about the difference between God’s permissive will and His perfect will in the day’s Bible in a Year podcast. What God allows to happen versus what is part of His life-giving, freedom-leading original plan for creation — that’s been a major point of conversation between us these past eight years. Father Mike’s words were a reminder that Rhett being born with a statistically shockingly rare genetic deletion wasn’t part of the Plan. Rhett was always meant to live and thrive.
January 17:
-Father Make Schmitz saying on the Bible In a Year podcast that “Life is a gift that isn’t owed to us.” A truth that has been hard to swallow, but one I’ve come to believe and leave with God. Life is a holy mystery.
-John 10:10 being in the day’s She Reads Truth reading plan. And, Psalm 23, which had already been on my mind, showing up in the podcast I listened to on my evening walk. A thought that came to mind as I listened: “The ending will not be unsatisfactory.”
-A discussion in a beloved Instagram follow’s live about how people have dealt with the loss of children through the years. It may sound sad and morbid, but I felt seen in that moment and like God hadn’t forgotten what this week is to me, to my family.
January 18:
-Once again on the Bible in a Year podcast, a passage that is part of our personal history and language, Job 26: “And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”
-My She Reads Truth reading included the story of the man Jesus gives sight to, the one the disciples question, asking if it was him or his parents who sinned and caused his blindness. “Neither,” Jesus answers. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him.”
January 21:
-My She Read’s Truth Reading for the day was John 11, where Jesus declares He is the resurrection and the life. A beloved passage that I clung to for dear life in the early days.
-The day’s reading also included Isaiah 6: “He sent me to heal the broken-hearted … to comfort all who mourn … to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair.”
Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump
I will never not miss him. This will never not be hard. But this is God showing up for me. Chasing me down with His love, as Psalm 23 says. Words and stories that are part of our personal language and memory bank, signs that I’ve rested my head on in certain moments, things I’ve picked up and carried in my pack to take all the way home with me — these are the thumps He weaved into last week.
We walk this thing together. He continues to keep His word.
