Heaven Archives - Page 7 of 9 - call me pasturescott

sideways

One of my favorite words is ‘snug’.

‘Snug’ makes you feel all tucked in as a down comforter beside a warm fire on a snowy night. It’s short for snuggle and who doesn’t like a good snuggle? Even the word feels cozy.

I remember our ritual of tucking our little Graham into bed at night, signing off with the words “sleep sweet in Jesus.” He usually never fell asleep until mom acquiesced and laid with him until he dozed off.

On those rare occasions we let him sleep with us he would position himself sideways, his head cradled in Sandy’s side and his piggies burrowed into mine. So long as he could feel both of us, Graham sailed into the ocean of dreamland all safe and sound. Our little bug all snug and warm.

As he grew, those rituals rightly tapered off and Graham needed our touch and reassurances less and less, but never completely.

He never ended a phone conversation or left our company without “love you” as his own ritual. Those glancing words were his way of still touching us both to make sure we were still there, still in his corner, still accessible. More so when he knew he had upset or disappointed us. Even still so when we had hurt him. His love yous were like his fingers thrumming on Sandy’s tummy or his feet kicking me in the night: I’m still here, are you there?

How we wish we had one more night of our little boy pointing east and west to our north and south and completing our universe.

His last night on earth Graham fell asleep all alone and never woke up. We weren’t there to play with his feet or tickle his tummy or tuck him in and, six years later, that still kills us.

A few hours after I found out Graham took another voyage to another place not immediately accessible to us, I tapped the breast of God with my outstretched hands and kicked at the door of heaven with my feet. I needed assurances. East and west, God, here I am… are you there?

More importantly, is Graham there?

I had dreamed* Graham was burning in hell and I could hear his screams. My heart was racing to know, is our Gra-Gra safe and sound with you, Lord? I don’t have the most acute or accurate memory to tell you how it happened, I can only tell you that it happened.

God said, “Go to my Word.”

I opened my Bible to Psalm 85 (didn’t know why) and read these words:

Psalms 85:2
You forgave the iniquity of your people;
you covered all their sin. Selah

I kept reading, and the more I read the more my heart felt reassured. I zipped through the rest of the short chapter, into the next, and on into chapter 87 where I read these words that sealed it for me. I knew it from my head to my toes: Graham is safe. He is snug. He is home. And I’ve never doubted it since.

Psalms 87:4-6
4 Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon;
behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Cush—
“This one was born there,” they say.
5 And of Zion it shall be said,
“This one and that one were born in her”;
for the Most High himself will establish her.
6 The Lord records as he registers the peoples,
“This one was born there.” Selah

Those nations included in God’s census? They were not only Gentile lands, they were rebel nations with checkered histories. And God made room for them in His Eternal Zion too.

My sister texted me this morning saying she knows how difficult this day is for us, but reminded us how much she loves us and how much she loved Graham. I thanked her for loving him with all his messes and goodnesses, that I didn’t understand how God’s grace works, but I sure am thankful for it.

Grace is for sideways people.

Jesus said he didn’t die for healthy people but those east-west souls whose lives are so crooked with sin they have no hope of ever finding True North.

We east-west people were put on an upright cross with Jesus (2 Timothy 2:11), were laid in the grave with Jesus (Romans 6:4), but when he was raised from the dead, he took us with him, pointed us North, and taught us how to walk upright. Straight up.

Graham is in that number. I know it because God said right there in the text, in so many words, “Graham is born in Zion. He’s a registered citizen. He’s mine. Satan, you can’t have him.”

“This one was born in Zion

Make no mistake,

this one is Mine

This one was born in Zion

This one will never,

this one will never,

This one will never die”**

Do you need some reassurance today? First you’ve got to be sideways. But then you’ve got to want to change your direction, and you’ve got to reach out and touch the only One who can make that happen.

You don’t earn it. You don’t luck into it. You certainly can’t hold onto someone else’s coattails and get in. Unless it’s Jesus, and you most definitely can do that because he’s made provision for it. It’s called faith.

In the end I know my son went to sleep sideways, touching Jesus, and woke up on top of the “Holy Mount” where “glorious things are spoken.” (Psa 87:1,3)

Selah,

and hallelujah!

___________________________________

* I know this wasn’t a “God–dream” because God does not manipulate his own by fear; this was either a construct of my own subconscious or a direct attack from the enemy

** Wayne Watson, “Born in Zion”, from album “Giants In The Land”, 1987

home for christmas

It rained. Oh, how it rained!

A rather unfestive three days before Christmas, the storms were so bad we couldn’t get out of the van to watch the men lower our son’s body into its resting-place. The very best we could do was pull up beside the gravesite and witness the hurried ceremony, if you could even call it that. I could see my wife’s breath on the window from her passenger seat, forming little clouds of moisture as she looked on, reverently. We held hands.

It seemed oddly profane to see our son lowered as the running rain sluiced into the earthen hole. It was made doubly so by not having the familiar words spoken over the descending casket but rather the hasty work of workmen finishing before the hole flooded.

It was December 22 and Christmas felt so far away.

Four years have passed since that driving rainstorm served as the backdrop of one of our little family’s toughest days. It did not, however, drown our hope. Our only child – in spite of trauma, tragedy, and devilish snare – made it home for Christmas by the grace of God.

Funny what you think about in moments of deep sorrow.

Graham leading worship at The Garden in Atlanta, our last Father’s Day together

The last time I was in Graham’s company on a good day (re: clean and living with purpose) I watched him lead worship at a place called The Garden. Fittingly, it was Father’s Day, and, quite incidentally, a bright, sunny morning.

He was clad in jeans and a white fedora, with an electric guitar cradled around his broad shoulders. There was an array of snaking wires and guitar pedals at his feet. Me, I sat on the opposite side of the platform and just beamed at my boy. With axe in hand, Graham was pretty incredible if I do say so.

I believe my son chose the first song of the worship set as a means of introducing us to himself in terms he could easily have written. I’m going to add the lyrics because it’s important to know what his heart was conveying in that unworldly moment; chiefly, that he was averse to being fake, a kid who wanted nothing more than to “make it home” by God’s grace…in spite of himself.

Here’s how Graham wanted to be remembered. This is what he wanted his mom and I to think about in that driving rain on that cold, December Sunday afternoon:

(Momma & Dad,)
I’m not trying to hide anything
I wear it on my sleeve
I wear it on my sleeve
I’m not trying to be something I’m not
This is all I’ve got
This is all I’ve got
I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel
Just trying to be real
Trying to be real
I’m not trying to say follow me
I’m not the one who leads
I’m not the one who leads
Let me introduce myself to you
This is who I am
No more, no less
I am just a man who understands
Because of You I’m blessed
No more, no less
I’m not trying to prove anything
It’s all about the change
It’s all about the change
I hope you stare just long enough to see
The heart that’s beating here inside of me
Beyond all the things you may think you know
I’m just a kid trying to make it home, that’s it
No more, no less
Lord, I want to go home
Nothing more, nothing less

Advent in our household means there’s no higher joy than our kid being home, safe and sound.

Would we love to have our own ‘Maxwell House long lost son home for the holidays waking the parents up with the aroma of coffee’ version of Christmas? A small part of us would, but then it occurs to us: Graham already beat us home.

Selah, beloved.

From us to you, the happiest of Christmases and the joy of the Spirit of Christ – who is our eternal Home – be yours.

Happy Birthday in Heaven, Son

Spring, 2013

The sun is warming up the day, and my boy sits next to me in our aging van. He’s chattering away like a child on Christmas morning as we bounce along Sweetwater Road. He keeps looking at the piece of paper he holds on his lap, almost reverently, then smiles out the window. I can see the reflection of his delight in the glass. Then I feel him looking at me, studying me. His smile fades.

I’ve been sullen as he’s jibbered away, unresponsive, except for a forced smile here and there along the way. He knows it’s fake. My child reads me like a book.

“Why can’t you just be happy for me, Dad?” he challenges.

He’s now fairly crumpled the paper in his unstrained fist and waving it in my face, but not disrespectfully. He doesn’t want a fight, not today of all days, heavens, and Lord knows neither do I.

“You want to know, Graham, why I’m not thrilled with this news?” I reply. “Truly?”

He doesn’t respond because he already knows.

The folded sheet in his hand is the news our son’s been waiting for. It’s an official letter from his probation office telling him he’s been cleared to move out of Georgia, that he’s to report to his new probation officer in Minnesota by such-and-such a day. Such-and-such a day was too close for my heart to accept, and so, as we took our backway home, I simply couldn’t rejoice with him. His take was I was peeing on his parade.

Perhaps I was.

“Graham,” I continued, attempting to avoid any tone of argumentativeness, “your Mom and I are sad because we may never see you again –“

He stopped me right there.

“But I’ll come back!” he offered. “Birthday, Christmas, whatever…it’s not forever, Dad.”

I pressed in a bit more.

“Son, I’m just not sure it’s necessary for you to move away for you to be safe from drugs. You know as well as I do, they’ll find you wherever you go…”

He sat back and fixed a frustrated glare straight ahead and was silent for a couple ticks. He knew he wouldn’t change my mind. When he looked back at me, there were tears.

“Dad, you just don’t know how bad it is! I can’t stay here, don’t you see? If I don’t get out of Atlanta I’ll die!”

I didn’t know it at the time but this would be one of our final face-to-face, father-son conversations. As we approached the stop sign to turn left onto Lee Road, I told him whatever happens we loved him, and I ended our painful discussion by telling Graham, “We won’t stand in your way, son; and we won’t make this hard for you. If this is what you feel you have to do, we support you.”

I pushed down on the turn signal to go into the turn.

Ironically, a half-mile back, on Graham’s side of the van, we had just passed the very cemetery we’d lay his body to rest – nine months hence – in a cold, driving rainstorm, two days before Christmas.

▪️ ▪️ ▪️ ▪️

Fall, 2015

Today Graham Scott would be 26, making it his second birthday in heaven.

🎉🎈🎂Happy birthday in heaven, son! 🎉🎈🎂

It’s not been a good day down here, however. I don’t think it’s about our son’s passing or not being here, necessarily. It seems it’s just life stuff. Bad days are rare for me. I mean ra-are. But I have them. Today seems to be one. I was outside earlier where and when I meet with the Lord each day, but I wasn’t feeling it.

Being in nature, listening to its distinctive rhythms, watching it unfold and spread its beauty usually does it for me. But today, silence. Birds weren’t showing themselves. Butterflies were too neurotic and preoccupied to light. Gnats and mosquitos wouldn’t stop pestering, and flies were trying to drown in my coffee. My prayers, often so easy and fluid, were limply waving at glory and getting no response.

And the Word. Why, the sure-fire solution to what ails me, kind of plopped like soggy corn flakes on my soul.

What gives, God?

My daily reading told me to read John 1 and 2, and I do what I’m told for the most part. Now, those two chapters are dynamite on steroids any other time. I mean, Jesus coming with grace and truth, grace following grace, taking away the sin of the world? C’mon. That’s the sweet spot for sure.

But today, nothing. Soggy corn flakes.

Then it happened.

Look again, Scott.

I do what I’m told, remember?

Instinctively, I knew where to look. No, not in the scriptures I just read, but to my daily reading schedule. Horror of horrors, I misread my assignment!

It didn’t say,

Jhn 1,2

It said,

Jnh 1,2

I switched the H!

I was supposed to let Father speak to me from Jonah! Not John! (No offense, John)

Okay, I thought, now we’re getting somewhere. I pretty much hurried through chapter one, excitement slowly mounting. It began to ebb a trifle when I finished, untouched yet, but I still had one more chapter to read. It wasn’t a long chapter, however.

God, please say what You’re gonna say in these 10 verses, or today’s gonna have to be chalked off. Please. Speak.

And, boy howdy, did He ever.

You know Jonah. His rebellion, his long run, his far fall. You also know chapter 2 becomes autobiographical; it’s not background or third-party perspective. We’re hearing from the man himself, and he’s describing for us what might very well be his last moments on earth, in the depths of the ocean, in the stomach of a great fish.

Now, may I insert here that I’m completely convinced and at peace – no doubting – that our Gra-Gra is with Jesus. Except for a dream of Graham screaming from the pit of hell a couple days after his death (quickly shaken off; God doesn’t use fear tactics on His broken-hearted children), I’ve swum in the grace-ocean of peace that he’s with His Savior in glory. Sandy too. This is an entirely settled matter for us.

Having said that, it sure was awesome to have God give me a first-hand glimpse into what might have been Graham’s dying moments on earth. Read these words and see if they might not also apply to someone at death’s door, swallowed in the foul waters of overdose, receiving the mercies of Jesus to cry out,

REMEMBER ME, LORD!!

Jonah 2:3-7
…the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.
Then I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight;
yet I shall again look
upon your holy temple.’
The waters closed in over me to take my life;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
O Lord my God.
When my life was fainting away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.

Was Graham right to move from his only home? I don’t have an answer for that, but I know I can’t question God and I don’t want to second-guess my boy.

All I know is, he’s not in that cemetery we both passed by, and where Sandy and I make a regular stop to ‘talk’ to him. He really is home. He made it. God remembered him in his dying hour.

Happy birthday in heaven, son.

And say thanks to Jonah.