Love Does.

WOW!  Where has the time gone?  I have so much to share...but I figured I would finish off some of the posts that have been hovering in the drafts section of the blog for far longer than they should have!  And yes, some of these are book reviews.  I think I read this book months ago and let's be honest - I read it FAR too fast.  May recommend that you read a chapter a day rather than the entire book in a day!  May make you appreciate all the little treasures within each chapter even more.

So the book of the day is...Love Does by Bob Goff.  After I started reading it, I began to see the book everywhere!  Oh how I loved this book.  The foreword is by Donald Miller and Bob kind of writes like him.  So I guess what I'm saying is...if you like Donald Miller there is a good chance you will like this book?  

The book is filled with truly delightful stories and each chapter takes you on an adventure.  But I must say, I definitely had a favorite - Chapter 25, God is Good.  He starts the chapter off by saying..."I had a friend named Don Valencia, and I miss him.  Don Valencia was another one of those secretly incredible guys.  He was about my age and full of life when I met him.  We all have friends, these amazing people who seem to live on the edge of death.  It must be because it's on that edge where they feel most alive, where they have the best perspective on life....Don moved his family to Central America for a time, and not long after returning, he began to feel a terrible pain in his side.  He was whisked to the hospital and diagnosed immediately.  He had metastasized stage-4 cancer of the liver and lungs. During his brave fight with cancer, Don continued living in a spirit of risk and adventure.  It was plain that he was never afraid to die, and he began to chronicle his journey.  I'd read his letters an posts along with many other people, and his spirit of love and hope and anticipation was inexplicable.  He said he felt like he was dancing on the edge of heaven - but he wasn't scared.  Don lamented to be sure, that when he stepped into heaven he would be leaving his wife and his two sons behind for a time.  He fought the disease for them and asked God to let him stick around to make as many memories as possible with the people he loved the most.  Each time Don wrote a letter or post, he'd end with these words: "God is good, all the time.  God is good."  It wasn't just something he was telling himself, hoping it was true.  It was something he knew for certain, and he was hoping we'd know too as he stood at the edge of heaven. It was like he was peeking through a knot hole in the fence at the face of God and telling us what he saw on the other side.

Don made plans to create a family memory at our lodge in British Columbia.  A week before Don and his family were to come, though, his health and energy faltered and Don found himself back in the hospital doing battle with the effects of his advanced disease.  Not wanting his family to miss out on a time to recharge at the lodge, Don asked them to make the trip anyway and leave him behind.  he wanted them to have a break as they moved into a season where fewer chapters would be written together.  We worked out the details of transportation and communication so we could get the family back to Don in case he needed anything, and the family agreed with Don's wishes to spend a couple of days amidst the beauty of the inlet Don had come to love so deeply.  it was as though Don was sending the family on an adventure so they could come back and report ever detail.

Heather and the boys arrived at the lodge, and I called Don, and he was in his hospital bed and we talked about the possibility of one last caper.  We laughed about the idea of springing him from the hospital and sneaking him up to the lodge.  I felt like I was back in high school plotting to the put the principals car on the roof, and before we realized how absurd it was, we were putting the finishing touches on our caper to get Don to the remote inlet to surprise his family.  Don figured out how to get the staff to spring him, tubes and all.  He was shuttled to a seaplane waiting for him a few miles away in Lake Union and it was game on.  Don was weak, very weak.  The plane ride was long.  In fact, it was way too long.  The seaplane hit fog halfway to the lodge and was grounded for the night.  Don took on all the medical procedures that were typically done by a team of nurses.  He did them himself in a small bathroom, and he must have felt like he was patching up a wound in the wild bivouacked on the side of a cliff in a snowstorm.  The next morning I was up early listening to the aviation channels in the radio room at the lodge.  Then a crackle came through the static from a friend who was the pilot.  The plan was just a few inlets away and closing in fast on his family.  I asked about how Don was doing and was told he was almost giddy through the tremendous pain and complete exhaustion of the trip.  I realized that Don was right back in his zone - on the edge.  I asked Heather and the boys to go down to the dock with my family, explaining that I needed help with a little project and a seaplane would be arriving with some groceries that needed carrying.  A short timer later, as the seaplane engine stopped and drifted to the end of the dock, I occupied them with a task behind a building so they wouldn't notice the plane's surprise cargo.  Don emerged wearing a red North Face jacket as though making the final ascent on one of the many peaks he'd scaled in his life.  Any mountain would have been dwarfed, however, by the one he had just scaled to get to his family.  heather, glancing up from her task, looked once and then again in disbelief.  "Don??"  She exploded to her feet and in three gallops fell into Don's strong arms.  We made our way up to the lodge and Don laid down on the large couch in the living room.  The boys sat at his feet and Heather laid by his side.  Our family disappeared into the kitchen but could hear them talking softly, then laughing, then talking softly again.  Heather and Don held hands and looked into each other's eyes a lot, and without getting up from the couch they slow-danced on the edge of heaven together."

...and the story goes on, but trust me, I have written enough!  And I'm shocked that you are still reading!  Some of you may have known Don Valencia, or perhaps you know his wife Heather, or even his two sons.  I, however, have not met any of them - so I read this story as a complete outsider.

And ugh....I get so angry when I hear stories like this.  It truly hurts my heart...and the tears just won't stop streaming down my cheeks.  I didn't even know this man.  But I get so mad at the injustice of it all.  At the loss of a husband, of a father, of a life.  At the grief.  My heart aches and it grieves, and I don't even know this man, and I get angry and then I feel sick to my stomach.  Are you sensing a pattern here?  I understand that God is good and that He is sovereign, but amidst these stories it is so hard for me to SEE it.  And it hurts soo bad.

I quite often wonder if tragedy were to strike my family how would I respond?  Would I cry out to God?  Probably.  Would I be downright angry??  Probably!  Would I let Him comfort me or would I turn away?  And this is the question I truly don't have an answer for.  I would like to have a definite answer and I wish I could say that 100% without a doubt in my mind, I would turn toward God during a time of true tragedy.  But I honestly don't know.

I have been blessed abundantly.  Both my parents are still alive.  My dad was able to walk me down the aisle and they were both there on my wedding day to see me get married to the love of my life!  My grandmas are both living - and my grandpas passed away before I was born.  All of my siblings are still alive.  Nothing tragic has ever happened to us - and even typing that makes me feel like I'm going to jinx everything, but it's the truth.

Tragedies are all around us and tragic things, terrible things, happen to good people ALL the time.  People die too young of cancer, of disease and some just die tragically.  And it's just not fair!  And it makes me so mad and I get so sad!  And I quite often think...I didn't even know this person.  Imagine how I would respond if I did?  And it scares me...and once again I think would I turn toward God or away from Him?  And I am inspired by the way such families deal with the loss of dream, of a life, of a childhood.

I will now step off my soapbox...thanks for reading!!

xoxo,

Malia