Dear Nahum,
I don't know if you saw it, but a wild wind whipped through the city late this afternoon, while I was making our supper. It knocked over flower pots and rearranged any light or loose items on our porch. Around the time Dad needed to bike home from the office, a hard rain began, making him thankful for all his rain gear. As the evening progressed, the storm stopped, but a thick layer of clouds still hung grey and heavy over the city.
We went out for a walk in the calm dark, under the overcast sky. Dad asked me which direction I wanted to walk, and I told him I wanted to go by the clinic where I received your diagnosis again.
Tomorrow your brave Dad is planning to tell his coworkers about the clouds hanging over our life right now. He'll explain why he's taking parental leave in June, and tell them why his happiness is mixed with sorrow. So as we sat on the rough, pebbly half-wall outside the clinic, Dad set down his umbrella and rehearsed the German words he wants to say tomorrow. Words about good news and bad news, about death and God and you. I tried to help him rehearse his sentences as we sat there in the shadow cast by the clinic, until the darkness came over me, too and I cried.
Sometimes being your mom has felt like being whipped around by the wind, or being rained on but forgetting my rain gear. But more often it has felt like what the disciples experienced when Jesus calmed the storm just by speaking to it. We couldn't sit in front of that clinic with peaceful hearts if we had chosen to kill you there. But neither could we sit in front of that clinic with peaceful hearts having chosen to continue your life...if it weren't for Jesus. The same One who created the water and wind and our hearts can calm them just by speaking.
He pins us down when the wind whips everything up.
He dries our tears when they mix with the rain.
The clouds still hang over us, but 2,000 years later His words,
"Peace, be still,"
have the same quieting effect on anyone who calls on Him.
"And there was a great calm."
