To my Andrew,
One year, absolutely unbelievable. I remember sitting in the aftermath wondering, What will life look like a year from now? And today here we are. Somehow one day at a time has added up to 365 days, days of sorrow and joy, days of hope and defeat, days of beauty and pain.
Grief has threatened to steal away everything, but we are still standing, still living, still fighting. Fighting for joy, fighting for beauty, fighting for peace, fighting for life! The fight has taken everything I have every single day. I’m exhausted, but still showing up, still saying yes, and still leading our boys through today and into tomorrow.
As I was thinking about the one-year anniversary, I couldn’t get over an Instagram picture you posted. It was a beautiful shot looking out over the lush Hawaiian landscape with light beaming down through the clouds. You captioned it, “In Kauai as it is in heaven.” I had to come see what you saw that day, so the boys and I hopped on an airplane and came here, your spot, your heaven, your favorite place in the world.
It hurts so deeply you aren’t here with us; I wish I could hold you, kiss you, see your smile, and hear your laugh. I wish you could play with your boys again; I wish you could see how much they’ve grown. Smith looks like a teenager, Jethro still looks like you just taller, and Brave still thinks he’s a baby and asks me to carry him everywhere we go, but his legs are growing long and his vocabulary is growing wide. We are slowly rebuilding a new life; I call it rebuilding beautiful. It’s a very different kind of beautiful, and right now it’s pretty ugly, but I am choosing to believe one day beauty will surround it.
This trip has been so special. We rented a bright red Jeep, something I thought you would love, and with our windows down, Jack Johnson blaring through the speakers, and the sweet island breeze flying through our hair, we have remembered you. Even though you aren’t here, I can’t help but see you all over this place. This place holds so many precious memories for you. The times you came here with your family growing up, the special time we spent on our honeymoon here, and the last trip we made with our whole family just a few years ago. This spot has been a healing place for a long time, and even now, it’s healing our hearts. It’s funny how people look at me when I’m out and about with our boys. I can see them looking for you, I can see their wheels turning, wondering, Is she really here all alone? Truth is, I know I’m not alone, I know the veil is thin. I know heaven isn’t far but near, I know our time on this spinning ball of dirt is just a pit stop, just a resting place on our way to you, to heaven, to a place even more beautiful than Kauai.
God has been so good to us this year. He has provided above and beyond in every single area of our lives. I set this verse as the background on my phone, and for months it has reminded me to pin my hope in Him: “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us” (Eph. 3:20 THE MESSAGE). He has done great things in and through our pain this year:
He has provided a beautiful bungalow for our little tribe.
He has given me deep purpose in the pain.
He has opened doors for our story to be told.
He has saved countless lives through your death.
He has surrounded us with support and love.
He has provided financially.
He has gifted us beautiful experiences all around the world.
And He has shown us He’s got this over and over again.
Andrew, I miss you so much, but I know I will see you soon. This year flew by, and I know every year will be the same. Until then, I will cling to those three little words that have carried us through so much, God’s got this, because He truly does. He is in every single detail, He is still holding us so delicately, and He is picking up the pieces and putting us back together, one day at a time.
I love you, Drew. I will never stop loving you.
Your Girl1
God’s got this—three words that entered our world in a small, dark room in the ICU unit of the hospital where my father-in-law, Dave, broke the news of his diagnosis to our family. He said, “The doctors just told me I have leukemia. And there is a kind you want and there is a kind you don’t want, and I have the kind you don’t want. But God’s got this.” A significant moment: a moment that changed our family forever, a moment marked by trust and faith, a moment where we declared together, no matter what the outcome, God’s got this. We didn’t know it then, but those three words would become our lifeline.
We made wristbands, built a website, and spread the news of Dave’s diagnosis to our church and our community, all branded with the hope of God’s got this. As the cancer raged through Dave, we ran to God. We continued to trust him despite our circumstances, and we faithfully shared everything we were learning with anyone who would listen. God’s got this became a message of hope—not just for our family but for families all around the world. All because of an intimate moment in the ICU and a man who served God well. Dave was the real deal, as real as it gets. Humble and faithful, servant, father, papa, pastor, and friend. He taught us how to love better, live fully, laugh often, and lead through pain. He was deeply admired by thousands of people, and he was Andrew’s best friend.
The leukemia journey lasted four years. It was a roller coaster of remission and relapse. As a family we lived in and out of the hospital, never knowing how much time Dave would have left. During his first season of remission, Dave was determined to return to the calling he loved, the calling that was stripped away in an instant that day in the ICU. In August 2012 Dave returned to the stage and, together with Andrew, led our church through a beautiful message series called Lessons from Leukemia.
The first lesson Dave shared was this: “Life is about bringing God glory.”2 As I replayed his message years later in the midst of my own grief and loss, all I could mutter through my tears was a quiet, resounding yes. It’s all about glory, not our glory but his. We exist in a world of personal gain and public platforms, and we forget it’s not about us. Life from the very start has been and always will be about God and his glory.
Before man ever existed, before the world was formed, before the stars were set into place, it was God and his glory. When he breathed life into dust and set the earth into motion, it was God and his glory. When sin broke everything glorious and good, it was God who sent down his Son in his glory to save us all. From the beginning to the end it has been and always will be God and his glory. From dust we came, and to dust we will return; we are simply reflections of God’s glory for our short time here. And when the time comes to say goodbye, we will enter into his glory forever.
The indescribable glory of God—it’s hard to find the words yet we try, using words like splendor, beauty, holiness, presence, and light. The elusiveness of glory beckons an awe and wonder in us. We all need wonder. When did we lose it along the way? That childlike wonder I see in my boys, I want to bottle it up and carry it with me everywhere I go. Wonder reminds us how small we are and how big God is. Wonder keeps us curious; it keeps us engaged, and it keeps us searching for him and his glory everywhere.
Glory is often tied to the word honor. We honor someone or something through an attitude of reverence and respect. Honor requires action; without action honor doesn’t exist. When I think about honor I think about tattoos—modern-day honor in the form of permanent ink. We pay tribute to the people we love and the things we ascribe value to through painfully marking our bodies forever. I have tattoos: a tattoo that reads “Psalm 139” on my foot; a tattoo proclaiming the names of my sons, Smith, Jethro, and Brave, down the side of my right arm; a cross on the top of my right hand; and two small tattoos in honor of my guy and our story on my left arm, my way of remembering him and honoring him forever.
A few days before Andrew’s memorial service, I drove to the small tattoo parlor by the beach, Agape Tattoo. I followed the steps up a narrow stairwell and into a quaint studio space. Peaceful music filled the room, a large, rugged cross was on display, and my friend Kelsey was there patiently waiting for me. It was a sacred moment; Andrew was gone, and I would permanently remind myself of his passing. We were the only ones there, just the two of us and the tattoo artist. I told him my sad story, but he already knew; he had been faithfully praying for our family. The news had found its way to him, and now the sad story had walked into his shop and asked for more pain. Such a small world we live in, but I don’t believe in coincidence.
I love how God so delicately orchestrates our lives, how he reminds us of his kindness even in out-of-town tattoo parlors. I explained to the tattoo artist what I wanted, a tattoo for my guy and a tattoo for our story. For Andrew, 2 Kings 22:2, his life verse: “He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.” A verse he planned to permanently mark on his body, but he never had the chance. And for our story, those three words that had carried us through so much, our lifeline: God’s got this.
The tattoo artist printed the words on a small piece of paper, and I found the perfect place, on the inside of my left arm just below my elbow. He picked up the tattoo gun, dipped the needle into the thick black ink, and delicately began his work. Andrew sitting in the presence of glory forever and me in a small tattoo shop honoring his name. How could it be? A life changed overnight and now a body permanently marked by the change. From the inside out I was transformed. Each etch of the needle painfully reminding me of my humanity, my fragility. I looked in the mirror when he finished and hardly recognized the reflection I saw. Far from a reflection of glory, I looked more like a reflection of brokenness, heartache, and pain. So many questions swirled in my mind. How do I bring God glory here? How do I live as a mirror of his glory in the trenches of pain?
Life from the very start is a series of mountaintops and valleys. But somehow we are to carry a mirror with us through it all; we are to reflect God in the dark depths of the valley just as we reflect him in the bright light of the mountaintop. But how? How do we cling to God’s got this and honor his name when life is dark and lonely?
There is a verse and a message illustration that helps with the how. During week two of the Lessons from Leukemia series, Andrew took the stage. He was twenty-four years old but called, equipped, and confident in his plaid button-down shirt and skinny jeans. He took a dry-erase marker in his right hand and carefully drew a horizontal line on a large whiteboard. It wasn’t a straight line; instead it started on the far-left corner with a small incline curved up, then drastically declined down and inclined up again on a curve to an even greater height. He called the illustration the Dip. The start of the line marked the place where we accept Jesus for the first time. The lowest point following the harsh decline marked the place where our faith is tested, and the end of the line, the highest point on the board, marked the place where God wants to take us. The illustration looked like this:
After Andrew explained the illustration, he carefully picked up the marker again and followed the line one more time. But this time as he followed the line, he read a familiar passage from the book of James: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2–4).3 The verse fit The Dip perfectly, and I am so thankful for this beautiful illustration of walking with God through it all. If we hold on to our faith and remember God’s got this—through every trial, every wilderness season, and every dark valley in this life—we will develop perseverance.
Perseverance sounds like a good word, doesn’t it? Just persevere, just push through, just keep moving forward, and you will be okay. Perseverance is anything but easy; instead it’s painfully developed over time. In another translation, the word perseverance is replaced with the word endurance (NLT), which means the measure of our stamina. Endurance asks the question: How long can we keep going without giving up? It’s a word that reminds me of a 13.1-mile journey, my first half marathon through the hills of Seattle. Andrew and I moved to Seattle just a few months after we were married. It was a short but significant period of time, newlyweds off on our own adventure together far away from home. He accepted a position as a high school pastor at a church surrounded by dense, green trees, and I was planning to pick up a few odd jobs as I finished my bachelor’s degree.
Two naïve California natives looking forward to living in thick sweaters, sitting by the fire, and being swept away by the sound of rain. We drove up the coast in our small, clunky U-Haul with high hopes and expectations. Upon arrival we were greeted with freezing cold weather and snow and forced to quickly adapt to our new surroundings and learn the ways of the Northwest. What we learned right away was that although the rain was relentless, it didn’t stop people from spending time outside. We were surprised to see people running, biking, and walking through the rain and the snow. In hopes of making new friends and adapting to the culture, I signed up for my first half marathon. I would slip into my thick leggings, throw on my windbreaker, lace up my shoes, and head across the street to the park, building up my endurance one run at a time.
It may have been the season we moved, but we literally never saw the sun. The cloud cover was so thick that the sky would become completely dark in the early afternoon. As the newness of Seattle wore off, the gloomy days began to wear us out. We dreamed of sunny California beaches and lying by the pool in the backyard. Just as we began to plan our move back home, we woke up one day and there it was: the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and our world was transformed. We emerged from our small apartment to discover a new season unfolding right before our eyes. New sights, new sounds, and new scenery surrounded us from every angle. We spent the entire day outside reaping the harvest of a long, patient winter. A crystal clear day in Seattle is so extraordinarily beautiful it will take your breath away. The beauty that is hidden in the darkness finally emerges in the light.
It’s like our wilderness seasons, isn’t it? It’s hard to see the light when the rain just won’t let up. It’s hard to feel the sunshine through the clouds. But without the rain, Seattle would lose its beauty. It’s because of the rain that the landscape develops such deep and vibrant colors. Couldn’t we say the same thing about our own life? Our own seasons? If all we knew were sunny days, we would never appreciate their beauty. It is the long, bleak winter that stirs in us a newfound appreciation for the sun. The One who set us here today, for such a time as this, is waiting for us in tomorrow. “All the tomorrows of our life have to pass through him before they can get to us.”4 We can choose to persevere, to press on, to embrace the hard, ugly, and uncomfortable knowing the finish line is waiting for us just around the corner. We can choose not only to embrace today but to endure the elements along the way. When we show up in the seasons where it would be easier to sit on the sidelines, we build the endurance we need to survive the marathon of life.
The Wilderness
Before we moved back to California, I once again slipped on my leggings, threw on my windbreaker, laced up my shoes, and showed up for the race. A 13.1-mile journey over rolling hills, through the woods, in the rain, and all the way into the city. The race was beautiful, painful, and challenging. As I passed each mile marker and grew closer and closer to the finish line, I knew the pain would be worth the glory; I just had to persevere. As I hit the final stretch, crowds of people began to gather around the sidelines. They were holding warm cups of coffee, sitting on cozy blankets. Some were holding signs, others were capturing the moment on cameras, but everyone was cheering and clapping for their loved ones. Finally, I rounded the corner, and there it was: towering high above the crowd, I saw the finish line. As I crossed over the line, I crumbled into tears. I couldn’t believe I did it. I couldn’t believe I’d endured all of the pain, and I couldn’t believe it was over. I pushed my way through the crowd and found my Andrew. He was waiting for me there with a big smile on his face. I fell into his strong arms as he held me close and whispered in my ear, “Good job, babe. I’m so proud of you. Look how far you’ve come.”
When I look ahead at my life, when I think about the finish line that’s waiting for me off in the distance, I imagine, just like that day in Seattle, my Andrew is patiently waiting for me there. He is standing on the sidelines cheering me on. As I pass each new mile marker, as I push through the dark valleys of pain, as I dig deep for strength to persevere, I know each breath, each moment, each day is one day closer to glory forever. And I can’t wait to cross the finish line, lock eyes with my guy, fall into his strong arms, and hear those same words from his lips. Good job, babe. I’m so proud of you. Look how far you’ve come.