Lesson 3

While hanging out in my hotel room this evening, I began listening to some JOC (Jars of Clay for the non-JOC fanatics), and I found myself placing "Boys (Lesson One)" on repeat. Now, I'm not a guy, and yet this song really began to move me.

It's a great song, but it's always around the second verse when it gets to "lesson 3" that I really start feeling what's trying to be conveyed. My dad passed away when I was a child, and my mother passed away last month. It's been a difficult road, and yet lately I've been looking back at the lessons taught to me over my life. One of the biggest things I regret is the fact that I wanted to grow up so fast. And now that I'm grown, I wish I could get back to that place where it was just me, my dad, and my mom and life was at its simplest. Where there was no hurry to date boys, go to college, or get my own place. Where it was long naps, and snack times by the old oak tree. God has continuously being trying to convey the same thing to me over and over again, "You are not alone." In all my regrets, in all my running, in all my suffered consequences for wanting to do it "my way," God shined through the forgiveness and love my parents showed for me, and even now in a period of deep heartache, God continues to convey the same lesson to me: I am not alone, and I never will be.

It's a shame when it takes the loss of a loved one to learn such a simple and yet important lesson.