From Family.

I turn to my dad and ask him what his thoughts are on what the clock looks like for someone at his age.

My dad proceeds to explain how he longs so much to retire, yet fears the idleness that comes with it. How he would love so much to go to the Philippines and live lavishly for little money, but knows how he would hate to do it without his family. How he wants to be done with the business, but empathizes with the employees he'd be leaving without a source of income. How he wishes that I would've stayed with the business, but knows that it's not my path.

It seems this is truly at the bottom of his heart. I grieve for how much he is lost without Christ. He's so caught between desires, and struggles to know what to do with what remains of his life. "For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21). That's so unusual, because people hardly consider death gain. To know that Christ is life is to know that everything on this Earth takes its most influential, inspiring, and important form when it is laid upon the foundation of God's blessing. To know that Christ is life is to trust in what Christ did on the cross, that he died for your sins and rose from the dead. "Because I live, you will live also" (John 14:19). When you know that, death can't be anything else but gain, because you know it isn't really death at all.

My sister begins to pray. As she does, her voice gets scratchy. This isn't that different from the way a voice sounds when a person's just woken up, and it's fairly early in the day. But right about the middle she takes a pause, then the moment she says "he'll always have a home here" her defenses drop and the tears come. At that moment there's a brand new connection made. Years of sibling rivalry and reluctant sharing had toughened up our exteriors too much be sappy with one another. Sure the love got bolder and more apparent as we matured, but something this vulnerable and frank had not been seen before. I squeeze my eyes shut and feel my own tears roll down.

My mom quickly jumps in afterward, asking to pray. There are few people on Earth who can recount your life like your parents. She starts with last Saturday, and gradually moves back in time. I listen as she starts with talking about the people at the party, to how I was in college and high school, to how I was growing up, to quoting the time Pastor Ed joked that I was the most faithful person in the congregation because I was going to two churches. I soak in the testimony of a mother about her son, how much she had observed and seen me throughout the years. I hear her cite my forgetfulness, my lack of car, my youth, and how she said it didn't stop me from what I needed to do. She recalls the late hours, the lack of sleep, and the conversations she sees me having online, over the phone, and in person. She confesses how proud she is and how unworried she is about me because she has marveled so often at how much God has taken care of her son despite the eccentric situations he often finds himself in. The approval and understanding of a mother in your most confusing and faith-testing endeavors is better than gold. The faith of a prayer warrior is unmatched. I hear her sobs and feel the tears run down her words and resonate in the pain she is feeling as she anticipates the distance that is going to lay between her and her youngest. I feel the tears drop on my pants and my breathing get violent; that kind of hysterical crying usually reserved for a kid after his scrapes his knee for the first time, that kind of ugly crying where you watch the snot rapidly string down in front of you and strip you of your dignity. For good reason I try not to listen when people say they're going to miss me. I'm usually really good at letting such compliments feed my ego. But this -- this broke me.

I look back now and think about that hour and a half in disbelief. Glory to God for the work He's doing in my family.