where waves grow sweet

Chase’s 7th grade year had just ended and it was finally time to leave on the epic road trip we’d been planning for months. Our bags were packed, our dog had been ferried over to our neighbor’s house and our excitement had waxed full. As we ate breakfast and gathered up some last minute items, we got a text from my cousin about the tragic loss of their son. He was only 30 years old, the same age our son would have been if he too hadn’t passed away. They had spent time together as kids. I would still call them kids. 

We didn’t know how to process the information, this horrifying news that shook our hearts. My stomach churned and I prayed for grace to overwhelm the pain of this boy’s family who loved him so dang much. We had walked this road of loss, and yet had no words that could make it better or take away their grief. My cousin’s siblings flew out immediately to be with them for comfort and offer practical help. All we could do was pray. So we finished packing our car, climbed in with weighted hearts and left on our trip.

It was hard to simultaneously hold the sorrow of this loss in our hands and the joy of our time together, exploring and adventuring with our son. It reminded me of taking Chase to kindergarten three weeks after his older brother, Cole, died. It was a new beginning, full of fresh experiences and friendships, which was so hard to reconcile alongside the end of Cole’s experiences and friendships. 

In light of this heartbreak, we were surprised by how much joy we experienced on this trip of new beginnings, journeying to places we’d never been. Riding bikes along rivers, hiking up mountains, seeing a grizzly up close, playing in a summer snowstorm. It’s almost like we treasured our time together more, taking nothing for granted, while carrying the hearts of my cousin’s family as they faced an unexpected end. When we returned, we took another road trip, this time to a memorial service to hold our cousin’s family tight and share their grief in this immeasurable loss.

This is the constant tension of life in a fallen world. Even on our best days, hardship and suffering are easily found. And even on our worst possible days, there will always be good and beauty and redemption. Because God is with us in this broken world and in our broken places. His goodness is not only greater than all the bad we could ever face, but it shines most brightly in those dark places, helping us see Him and find Him, drawing us toward Him where we will find joy even here.

Still, we know deep down this isn’t the way it is supposed to be. Our sons aren’t supposed to die young. People aren’t supposed to suffer endlessly. Relationships aren’t supposed to break apart into jagged pieces that we use to harm each other. We long for a day when that tension will break, like a summer storm finally releasing the suffocating humidity, bringing relief; when our pain will be healed and all the wrongs righted; when we will finally understand. The Bible said that day is coming when ^“ He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” This is what our hearts crave and anticipate.

Until then, we live in the tension. And we live in hope. Not just of a someday when we won’t hurt anymore, but of the power of redemption in the here and now. Of the goodness that overcomes. Of a joy that is rooted in eternity and can never be taken. 

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11