The Cross Means More

It’s been one year since my dad passed away unexpectedly. 

A shockingly quick, yet devastatingly long trip around the sun. Mondays still come as quickly as they used to, but the fabric of time seems to be stretched uncomfortably wide when an anticipated reunion with a loved one is now a lifetime away.

In the meantime, I trod along with counterfeit goods in replacement of the real thing; a 12-second voicemail from my dad now acts as a temporary stand-in for the living, breathing, six-foot beacon of kindness that I once had in my life. That’s no complaint from me; I find that sometimes these treasured artifacts are necessary to forget the reality around you for a moment. If you give these memories enough focus, they can overtake the present for a brief time.  But, similar to any life-like dream, you know if the wind blows a little too hard, you can see the wizard behind the curtain, and the charade is up. Hearing the last remaining voicemail from my dad is no different. The wind is still and everything is peacefully quiet for a moment:

“Hey, E. I’m leaving to get the pizza, so I’m probably going to be home in about 15 or 20 minutes. So, see you back at home. Bye.”

It sounds shockingly average; I get it. Or, maybe I’m making it sound like my dad and I shared a cosmic bond over a good New York slice. I’ve always thought there was a strangeness to the things that people would find value in once someone had passed away, but the oddity seems to make sense once it’s you. 

For me, the entire message can be summed up in two words – Hey E. I don’t know how to describe what it feels like to lose someone so close to you at a stage in life that you weren’t prepared to say goodbye, but hearing my dad say my name brings an easiness to my soul. It’s a nickname that my dad called me for most of my life, and it’s something that feels safe, normal, and mostly, like home. I’m blessed to be able to experience that again, if only for a few seconds at a time. But, it also feels cruel in a lot of ways as the naive part of my brain thinks if I could just whisper a witty enough joke to the phone, I might hear one more iconic laugh from the voice trapped inside. Instead, the recording ends each time, and we’re back to a dad-less reality.

Unfortunately, I’m not alone in the excruciating pain that this life brings. Recently, I’ve been around far too many life-altering events for friends, family, and neighbors. Some have lost parents and grandparents, others have been diagnosed with various forms of cancer, while many deal with strain and anxiety that appear from all angles. Mix in the 24-hour news cycle and daily digestion of social media posts spurring division, hate, and bitterness, and what do we have? An absence of hope. 

Searching this world for hope is a tough venture. Our lives as we know them are transitory; sand passing through our fingers. If we are to find hope in this world, it is always more illusion than substance, holding its shape for a moment, but quickly leaking out into a vat of nothing soup. What we have hope in and stake our lives in weren’t meant to be placed in anything but solid ground. 

Based strictly on the amount of times I’ve been told that the early loss of my dad was “unfair” by well-meaning people, I realize hope should be at a premium in my life. A natural reaction could be to scream and yell and complain to God about what He’s taken from me. It could be fitting to pound on the ceiling and let Him know that the party upstairs isn’t quite as fun for those of us sleeping below. But, my heart wouldn’t mean it. 

It’s that little voicemail recording that reminds me that the hope I find in Jesus and His work on the cross means more to me today than it did a year ago. Heaven became more tangible, or at least less theoretical than it was when my dad was still with us. It’s not that I believed in God any less before, but loss has an interesting way of building equity in eternity. God’s promises have always been at the core of my life, but nothing could prepare me for a time when they need to be true.

If I’ve learned anything from my grief so far, it’s that God is just as good today as the days when my dad was still alive. The Jesus I know is a man of sorrows who is well acquainted with my grief. He’s deeply involved in it in a dirt-in-your-fingernails and boots-on-the-ground kind of way. He doesn’t just see my hurt, but He lived among us to understand it and feel it, too. And at the end of His time on Earth, He wept and bled and in the greatest act of love our world has ever seen, gave His life to give us everlasting life.

Maybe today you’re feeling so much hurt that it’s unbearable. Maybe anxiety feels like a rising waterline that is one big swell away from swallowing you up. Or, maybe shame has held you down for too long. There’s good news in this: comfortable people don’t need Jesus. God draws close to those who are hurting and hears their cries. There’s no sin that can’t be redeemed and no mistake that can’t be made right in Him. He’s always been there with an outstretched hand, waiting for an invitation to comfort and rebuild a kinder, more tender heart in you; one that sees the pain in others and spurs you to love them well.

God knows you intimately and loves you beyond your comprehension. He’s overjoyed with who you are and created you with overwhelming purpose. A favorite author of mine says that God is leaning over the rails of heaven and can’t wait to see what you’ll do next. I think that’s a beautiful visual of the proud Father that we have.

The cross means more today because I hold onto the promise that one day, when I’ve taken my last breath on the Earth, I’ll arrive in the arms of my Savior, and a familiar voice who has been waiting for me will say, “Hey, E.”

I pray the cross always means more to me tomorrow than it does today.

Love you forever, Dad.

-E