Page 119 of The Voice We Find

I push down my instinct to argue and slip the cool metal over my wrist, clasping the magnetic closure with ease.

“Go ahead.” I gesture to the box, indicating it’s her turn, even though there’s only one more item to remove: our mother’s thick, leather-bound Bible jam-packed with all sorts of bookmarks and sermon notes. Unlike our father’s pocket-size New Testament, Mom could never be convinced to find a more suitable version for their travels. Gabby’s lips tremble as she pulls it out and hugs it to her chest as if it were my mother herself.

The affectionate display clogs my airway for a moment, and I have to look away in order to regain my composure.

From my periphery, I see her open it on the floor. Gingerly, she flips through each marked section, until she stops.

“August. Look.”

At the awe in her voice, I turn my head and peer down into the pages of my mother’s worn Bible. Only it’s not the Psalms I see, but a blue three-by-five card dated several months before the accident.

Father,

I thank you for my son and for how you’re working in his heart even now. I believe you are trustworthy in all your promises and faithful in all you do. I believe your promises are for August and for his future. (Psalm 145:13)

Amen

Gabby flips to the next passage with a blue card, this one in the book of Luke.

Father,

I thank you for my son and for how you’re working in his heart even now. I thank you that it’s your kindness that leads us to repentance. I thank you that you’ve shown us how to run toward our son with open arms like the father in this parable, like you’ve always run toward us. (Luke 15:20–24)

Amen

My chest burns hot, not with the shame I usually feel, but with something much stronger. Even when I chose a life far from the one my mother had imagined for me, she didn’t give up. She didn’t let me go.

There are more than a dozen blue prayer cards tucked inside the folds of my mother’s Bible, and with each one, the hard outer shell of my heart continues to crack. She prayed for me. As much for where I was in the moment as to where she hoped I’d be one day.

The last card we find is located in Romans. I pick it up, noting the familiar reference.

I read it out loud.

“‘Father, I thank you for my son and for how you’re working in his heart even now. I thank you that there is nothing that will ever separate August from your love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow. Thank you that your love for him is eternal. Romans 8:38. Amen.’

“It’s the same verse you read tonight,” I say to Gabby. And it’s the same verse her rescuer had spoken over her as he carried her to safety. But what’s even more significant is the tiny date inked in the far right corner of the blue index card. The fault line that started at the base of my heart while Gabby performed on stage has now been cracked wide open. I can only stare in bewilderment as the card shakes in my outstretched hand.

“Look” is all I can manage.

I know the instant she sees it because her gasp sounds like the breath my lungs are still so desperate to take.

On the very day my mother met her Savior face to face, she prayed this benediction of love for me, her prodigal son.

My mother died believing that nothing could ever separate me from God’s love, and yet I’ve spent more than two years living as if her death did just that. As if by refusing to accept my parents’ invitation to go to India, I somehow disqualified myself from every other invitation offered to me by God. That the only way to lessen the pain was to try and fix all the brokenness around me without truly examining the point of my shame. Not because I didn’t believe God could forgive me, but because I didn’t believe I could ever forgive myself.

Much less love myself.

Or let anyone else try, for that matter.

As soon as Gabby rises from the carpet and excuses herself from the bedroom, I fall back against the bedpost, drop my head in my hands, and finally surrender the burdens God never asked me to carry.

When I come out of the bedroom, I find my sister reading our mom’s Bible on the sofa. I can tell her eyes are glossy from tears, and I’m sure she can see the same in mine.

I sit on top of her feet, and she squirms and kicks the way she always does.

“Thank you for doing that with me,” I say.

She smiles as if that’s all I came out here to say, but it’s not. Far from it. I jostle her leg until she’s made eye contact with me again.

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