In August of 2020 most of my family gathered to celebrate my nephew’s fourth birthday.  It was five months into the Covid-19 pandemic. 

We sat around a living room after the kids had gone to bed, listening to them pretend like they were asleep.  A few adults sat across two couches that faced each other; a few sat on the floor.  One sat on a silent and cold brick fireplace with a cup of coffee in hand.  Well-worn life patterns of alarms, workouts, coffee, and a kiss in the doorway were replaced with 50-yard stares, exorbitant amounts of time in front of virtual meeting cameras, and backyard meals with the only faces one was permitted to see. 

Nothing was a foregone conclusion.  Every day brought a new wave of tragic news and we, along with many, many others started to reconsider – well, everything. 

Is this what I want to do with my life?  What am I pursuing that matters?  Is this how I want to live?  Am I making the most of this existence?  Am I loving people well?  What am I missing because I’ve been living too fast, too unthinkingly, too selfishly? 

I imagine each conversation, whether within a household, friend group, or individual consciousness sounded distinct.  For our group, the conversation was girded by one foundational concept:  to do life together. 

This wasn’t the first time we’d talked about it.  It was more likely the one thousandth time.  We knew we wanted to live life together – my parents had been given that vision decades earlier – but circumstances were not amenable to that desire.  For nearly twelve years, our family of origin was spread across three cities that occupy different corners of the country – Chicago, Orlando, and Los Angeles.  Some here, some there, learning, blowing out candles, bowing at recitals, scraping knees, catching fireflies, and slicing turkey in different locales… and then doing it all over again. 

What’s true about our culture in the west is that we say family is the most important thing and then we make decisions for our jobs.  I guess a pandemic, along with a few other things, helped us reframe that. 

I’m glad for our time apart.  It helped us all grow in ways we needed.  I had to learn how to catch cockroaches. I put up curtain rods, changed car batteries, hosted campfires, replaced screens in the windows, and cared for myself when I got the stomach flu because no one was there to do it for me.  I learned how to solve problems with YouTube, adapt, survive, build a new community, and pray, alone, because that’s how sanctification starts. 

All of that matters.  And I’m so glad for it.  It has prepared me very well in fact, for a zombie apocalypse. 

However right now, that apocalypse has not yet arrived, and my family is much less at an end and much more at a beginning.  Our family, which we call ‘tribe’, has a new generation budding.  Eight souls under the age of eleven are entering a world that is hard. 

They say it takes a village, and God gave us one of those in each other.  It’s what my parents have always called ‘our first community’.  It’s where the foundation is laid and set in immoveable concrete slabs so when we go out into the world and get beat up, we know where to return to reprieve in stability, safety, and steadfast surety. 

Let me be very honest. 

Although I very much wanted to be part of the big tribe party, I had a good thing going where I was.  It didn’t come easy.  It started with me at a rock bottom.  No job, no money, no relationship.  I was brokenhearted, broken, and just plain broke. 

What’s stunning about brokenness though, is that if you’re willing to sweat, there’s great beauty on the other side of the fight.  And there was for me.  I’m not going to pretend like it was a pretty set of years – it wasn’t.  The old trees that surrounded my home were heavy with Spanish moss and they heard every prayer I prayed through that mess.  The sidewalks that made circles around the lakes by my home were stained with my tears – literally. 

But as the days passed, the pain did too.  It wasn’t fast.  It was organically slow, in fact.  But it happened.  Joy came.  Community grew and then thrived.  Laughter took a seat at the front door, kicked off his shoes, and then asked for a refill.  My job was great.  My work meant something.  And more than anything, the growth and change and evolution in my soul paired a sentiment to that house, in that town, with those people that I cherished and didn’t particularly want to leave. 

It’s a natural thing, I think, to not want to let go of something good. 

On the last night I lived in that house, my clothes were damp with sweat.  My shirt stuck to my body and was stained brown with dirt, dust, and rust from moving stuff out of the house.    No one was there that day.  It was just me and the dog for a twelve-hour clean out.

I decided to take one last walk around the lake near the house.  It’s so close to downtown you can see the city lights reflected on the water, but it’s far enough away you don’t hear the city.  Just the songs of frogs and cicadas. 

I remember fighting emotion, unsure of the wisdom of my choice to leave such a good situation – and one I’d fought hard to acquire.  Tears started to roll down my face as I considered my immediate reality.  I was leaving this beautiful, healing, community-filled, wonderful place for a complete unknown.  And it was happening in real-time. 

I started to pray out loud to the air, as I always did on the walks around that lake.  I started to ask why I was doing this.  Why now?  What next?  Was He sure?  Was I sure?  Why would I be asked to leave this beautiful, good, thriving place? 

And through the rapid passing of questions through my mind one very clear, very calm sentence whispered into the violence. 

“Child, do you think this is all I have for you?”

All the sudden my questions turned from why’s to wonder.  What awaited beyond my letting go?  What would I miss if I was unwilling to trust?  What would I sacrifice if I was so focused on the good in front of me that I couldn’t see the great beyond the release? 

I imagine it’s like climbing a mountain.  The trail narrows and your legs burn, and your chest is heavy, and the trees crowd your sight.  The walk has been lovely, the scenery – delicious, the views – delightful, and that’s enough.  And so, you turn back for the bottom, thinking it’s all been just enough, when you were actually four, small steps from the thrill of the summit.  You miss the clearing.  You miss the view.  You miss the victory, the celebration, the accomplishment, the satisfaction of knowing you did what you were meant to do. 

I don’t want to miss the summit.  The climb most of the way up does not feel like the story we were created to live. 

I don’t have a miraculous conclusion.  I made the move.  I let go.  I did the thing.  Everything has changed, and yet not much has changed at all.  I imagine if you hang around long enough, you’ll get the story along with me, as I live it, right here in this very blog. 

The only thing I know for sure is that questions that start with the word ‘why’ offer nothing more than silence and shrugged shoulders.  And even as I sit here tonight, met with fresh situational disappointment and persistent temptations to ask ‘why’, I must posit this newly ever-present inquiry: “Child, do you think this is all I have for you?”

It changes everything.  So, from one fellow journeyer to another; one, weary, four-steps-away mountain climber; one doubting, questioning, complaining, are-we-there-yet-shouter to another: do you think this is all He has for you? 

It’s a question only you can answer, but I’ll see you on the trail.  I may be sweating, sitting on a rock looking ticked and eating dried mango, but I’ll be there.