As with each of our children, we tried our best to consistently illustrate God in story. With Jack, that process was received a little bit differently than the others, even as a four-year-old. At the end of the story, Jack would pause and reflect quietly. He would eventually ask questions on the subject of God and would reveal, sometimes weeks after a conversation, that he had put great amount of thought into whatever we may have talked about. He was different: always wanting to hear more. How would he become the man he was? He is the authorship of God.
At the end of each day of Jack’s life, God would say “Beautiful!” The days of Jack’s life were all prepared before he even lived one day. Jack wrote his life with God and looked upon it as an empty canvas, and he was at peace with the unalterable fact that we are human and that frustrations, pain, illness, sadness and death are all part of it. Jack never passed on any bitterness to others during any of his bi-polar lows that periodically Jack experienced in the last five or six years of his life. He lived and experienced life bountifully, with all the awe that a spirit of adventure and love for raw nature and a life in the mountains can bring. Jack exuded kindness to anyone in his presence. Was he a perfect kid? Far from it with flaws up one side and down the other, but we loved him for his flaws, as he loved others for their flaws he sought to heal broken hearted souls down on their luck.
However I remember Jack, I consider what he is experiencing now and I try to not let my heart be troubled and trust in God, that one day I will forever live somewhere that has been prepared likening Elysian fields–heaven. There, I will be reunited with Jack. I cherish my memories and the love I feel for Jack, and remember that on the other side of the veil I will come together again with all of my loved ones and the Author Himself, in ultimate joy. Humans have this God-given, innate sense of the eternal. Today, the Author’s hand rests on you, take heart. It’s not over, the best is yet to come.
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
JOHN 14:1-3