Page 121 of To Belong Together
You just started school, and I know most dads would wait for you to finish to send something like this, but you’re stuck with what you got in the old man department.
If only she’d been stuck a little longer. Years longer. Eyes filling, she dipped her chin in a struggle to retain composure long enough to finish reading.
Studying cars is a success in my book. You fought to get here. You never shrink away from being who you are, even when it’s tough. God is going to fulfill His purpose for you. His steadfast love endures forever. You’re the work of His hands, and He won’t forsake you.
Go show ’em how it’s done.
Love, Dad
PS – I borrowed most of that one part. Psalm 138:8.
No wonder those few lines hadn’t sounded like him. But the rest of it spoke his voice so clearly that he might as well have been beside her. She dropped the card to her lap and lifted both hands to keep her tears from staining the paper.
Dad was somewhere after all. He was in memories, and he was in Heaven.
It wasn’t the same. It really wasn’t.
But knowing where to find him rendered her a fraction less lonely.
Dad was gone, but God wasn’t. Dad really believed God had made her with a purpose. He’d even, apparently, spoken to Uncle Nick about it with enough earnestness that her uncle had retained it and decided to repeat the message back to her. Nick, whom she’d never heard speak about his faith or God in other contexts.
If Dad believed so strongly, maybe she could dare to believe it too.
God loved her. The truth seeped deeper than her mind, touching the edges of her pain.
She stretched to snag her Bible from the bedside bookshelf and found the verse Dad had referenced.
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;
your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.
So, Dad had taken liberties, turning that last request into a statement, but the wordforsakebrought to mind other passages of Scripture that confirmed the promise.
If God valued her and had assigned her a purpose, who was she to live as though she didn’t have a valuable role to play in this world?
She read the verse again, imprinting it on her memory. Her life wasn’t a pointless exercise in being an outcast or grieving. She had God, and in Him, she had both purpose and eternal hope.
And in that, finally, she found rest.
38
John hadn’t slept more than an hour or two at a time in the week since his final conversation with Erin. Perhaps sleep deprivation explained why he was surrendering to the idea that had been nagging him since the funeral. After this, his debate over whether the decision was foolish or compassionate would be irrelevant. He could get on with his life.
Closure. This was closure.
Through the windshield of Tim’s rental, he watched Awestruck’s manager emerge from the small brick building that served as Erin’s church. He seemed in no hurry, and John drummed his thumb on the armrest.
If John didn’t think the pastor would have recognized him, he would’ve gone in himself.
Finally, Tim dropped to the driver’s seat. “All set.”
John studied him, waiting.
After a long-suffering sigh, Tim counted John’s instructions off on his fingers. “I only talked to the pastor. I didn’t tell him my name. I asked him not to say anything to Erin or her mom about me. I said it had to be completely anonymous.”
He exhaled. Done. It was done. They wouldn’t lose the house.
