My mother died several months ago, and my sister found this old letter in our mother's belongings.
It was written to me, by my father while he was serving his country in Vietnam.
My sister sent this letter to me in my birthday card. She has asked me what my thoughts are about receiving this gift and I have decided to share them.
Receiving this letter is, I think, a perfect birthday present.
Let me explain why.
Years ago, when I was just a little girl and my father was away fighting in a war that I could not possibly understand, my mother and I would watch the evening news.
Every evening we would see images of the war. Images that are, even today, frozen in my mind's eye. The sad thing is, as awful as those images were/still are, they didn't frighten me nearly as much as my own mother.
You see, every evening, after Walter Cronkite would bid the nation goodnight, my mother would turn to me and say, "Jerri, you had better be a good girl because if you don't, God will punish you and your daddy won't ever come home."
At the tender age of six, I began to believe that my father's fate hinged upon my performance at home. I began to believe that God was all about rewarding the good and punishing the bad. I began to believe that I had to be perfect in order to be loved; and I simultaneously began to sense that I could never be good enough, or perfect enough no matter how hard I tried.
At the tender age of six, I took on the responsibility for saving the world, and the tangled roots of my own despair began to grow deep within the soil of my childhood.
Do you know what it is to despair?
I do.
I learned to despair in front of the nightly news, watching men die, wondering if one of them was my father and believing that each and every death occurred because I was a bad girl.
For many years, I carried that despair within me, and that despair grew and grew until I tried everything I possibly could to drown it away. I tried sex, I tried academics, I tried booze, I tried chocolate, I tried working hard, I tried having babies, I mean I tried everything I could until there was nothing left for me to try. Out of options and driven to my knees by despair, I finally tried the only remaining "thing" for me to try.
I tried God.
Learning to love God, and to love myself has been a long and sometimes painful process. It has taken years for the two of us to weed the garden of my own soul; but I have found that God is as faithful a gardener as He is a sheperd. He does not dig too deep, or tug too hard, unless I am ready to stand with Him, my own shovel in hand.
So, when I say that this letter is the perfect birthday gift, I do so because it reminds me of how far I've come with God as my friend, companion and gentle gardener.
Years ago, I would have burned this letter. I would have burned it because it would have represented yet another niggling root of despair trying to wind its way through my life.
Today, I can see and appreciate the tenderness of the father who wrote those words in the letter above, because I have experienced the love and the tenderness of my heavenly Father.
Now when I see this letter, when I hold this yellowing page in my hands, I feel such compassion and love for my parents. I am finally able to see their humanity in all its glory and its weakness.
This letter is a perfect present because it reminds me that my lifetime of anger and despair has been uprooted by the love of Christ.
....you know, we Christians like to talk about how we can never return to the Garden of Eden. I always fluff a few holier than thou feathers when I say that I'm ok with that. I don't need the Garden of Eden, and I have no desire to return there.
God is creating a new garden within my own soul; and for me, this soul garden is enough. It is my home, you see. I love to live in this garden, because God is there and He's wearing His floppy hat, gardening gloves, and a smile that vanquishes every dark root of sorrow and suffering.
God is good.
I am good.
This present is good.
The end.
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