There is this thing that I do… sometimes I am better at it than other times… but I call it my “I love you” moments with God. Things like the snow sparkling or the clouds parting. Just a little thing here or there that is beautiful in its own way. Sometimes, it might be something someone says or an opportunity to encourage someone else. Whatever it may be, it works really well. When Kyle passed away last year I remember finding this folk singer, Denison Witmer, and listening to his music all day long from class to class on my little MP3 player. There is this one song that goes like this…
How you found me out
I still never understand (There was so much that I couldn’t understand but I realized in the next line that it didn’t really matter… because all I knew was that God was there with me through it all.)
Thoughts you can't take with you when you go
You were waving flags that bear the colors of your love
I didn't know (I had come to a new realization… that God was quietly showing His love to me… sometimes yelling it to me… and I didn’t realize it until everything else in life seemed to stop.)
Orange for the vineyards
Blue is for the rivers
Green goes like a hillside covered now
White is not surrender despite what you've been told
It's clouds of hope (Hope was a concept that, as dramatic as it may sound, was lost on me for a long time… but seeing His beauty and faithfulness slowly restored the hope I had in Him… the hope I have in human beings is still shaky…)
That fall on you now
Save you now (x2)
One time we met
You were outside floating in the forest
I placed my stigmata on your hands
Little flowers that you have sawn show people you have known
That I am love (Another realization that I had… it wasn’t the huge proclamations of love that really made me miss Kyle… it was his daily presence, his personality, his laugh, his consistency, and faithfulness in our relationship no matter what the title was. I realized that so much of what inspires people and moves there inner being toward Christ was the small ways we love them daily…)
And fall on you now
Save you now (x2)
Music is amazing when it comes to getting me through things… but nature, God’s work, is was really hits a chord somewhere deep inside. Something radical happened in my heart, an awareness that was not known before Kyle went home. Losing him made me really think, made me exhausted in every aspect of my life, and helped me reach the point of emptiness that can be amazing or terrifying. I remember wishing I could just get wasted… fill that void with anything pleasant… anything that would numb me. But, I also felt such a strong pull towards God. Towards a deeper healing and something in my wouldn’t allow me to go down that destructive road. So many of us wanted to, I know it’s true. I still can’t believe the changes I have seen in my friends. All good… But anyway, back to the daily reminders. I had been doing that before Kyle passed away… but obviously… my need for Christ, and my need for affirmation of His mere existence heightened my senses to Him. Ha… I am remembering one day last year, I was soooooooo angry because I had to go to class and my roommate had just started crying before I left. I started walking and, as I approached the Oak Tree, tears started streaming down my face. I didn’t know what I was even doing here. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew one of the HUGE leaves off of the tree and it smacked me so hard in the side of the head I almost fell down. In my already fragile emotional state I began laughing hysterically. I felt completely silly and suddenly I could feel God laughing with me. Little things like that got me through that semester and following summer. And still… when it rains on a warm summer day, it’s for me… and when the snow sparkles and no one is looking at that particular patch of snow but me… it’s for me… and when I am walking down the sidewalk and look to my left for no apparent reason and there is a dandelion… it’s for me… and we some random leaf falls from the sky and smacks me back into life… it’s God saying… lighten up… I love you… and we’ll both see you soon.
KC
