It’s Christmas Eve at the farm on Willow Road…

And the Cook family is not there – and ultimately, we’re going to be okay.

I’d been grappling with what to do with the Christmas Eve message I’ve been doing for years now that I don’t have the farm as my muse. A lot of friends have been asking about it, too. (editor’s note: there are a couple of previous posts for those for whom this is breaking news. You can read the story here.)

It began as an email to a few close friends and ministry partners back in 2006, and its audience has expanded ever since. I had no idea of the form of it this year with all of the changes our family has experienced; but I knew that something had to be said. I’ll keep it brief…

I’m sitting in the comfortable kitchen/parlor area of my sister’s house just inside the Beltway in Washington D.C. The late morning sun is breaking through the clouds periodically, bathing the room in the golden light of the solstice. Preparations are being made for a grand dinner with friends later on; and I haven’t made it out of my pajamas yet.

Julia and Jocelyn are taking my sister’s dog out for a walk and there are strains of Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas in the background (still one of the finest holiday albums ever).

If there was anywhere my heart wanted to be other than the farm for Christmas, it was here. Whether happy or sad depends on my momentary mood and perspective, but it’s been a hell of a year. Here’s just a quick rundown:

In the early spring, and with my dad’s endorsement, we made the fateful decision to sell the farm. Surprisingly, it sold pretty quickly for a gentleman farm in a rural Michigan township. It was a lot of work this summer, but the farm was passed along to a new family to plant and harvest some dreams of their own. And the one constant that we had leaned on for over fifty years was gone.

With the selling of the farm, there little keeping us in Saline anymore; but I still made the weekly Friday trek out to see my dad. He had been in assisted living in town for a couple of years by then, and we had seen over that time his growing tiredness. There was something in me that was saying, “Get him closer,” and an opportunity opened up for a new facility a three minute drive from our home in Birmingham.

It took a little convincing, but we moved him there in early September. And I count it as one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I saw him more than once a week – way more. Julia and I developed a rhythm to pop in and see him on the way home from school, where he would be waiting with her special cup of snacks and quiet small talk. It was the highlight of her day, and she saw her Papa a lot in that marvelous sliver of time.

But it was clear that his energy for life was flagging. After his return from yet another hospitalization in October, he made it pretty clear that he wanted that to be his last trip. Hospice was called in a few days later. It was settled – his next infection would be his last.

Bob Cook died quietly in the early morning hours the Monday before Thanksgiving. His kids had all said their goodbyes; and it was a fitting end to a life well lived, all things considered.

But it was clear that this Christmas was going to be very, very different for our family. Two of the rocks we had anchored ourselves to in the face of life’s storms were gone; and I had watched as the “empire” that Dad had spent his entire life creating seem to dissolve in six months’ time.

I was smart enough to throttle back a bit as we entered December; but despite my deep desire for quiet, the momentum of the season still dragged me along. Normally, one can retreat to the old places and practices of comfort in those insane moments to regain a sense of stability; but many of the most reliable possibilities were gone for me.

So I spent a lot of time just… pushing through. Grief can take an enormous amount of energy – the energy you would normally use to step over the normal frustrations of life and simply be civil to others. The whole season, there has been a persistent ache in my chest; so real that it prompted me to hit up my doc and rule out heart trouble. Turns out I’m physically fine, by the way. It seems the heartsickness I’m feeling is something quite a bit deeper.

But at the same time, I’ve been trying to take my own advice and try to keep my heart soft and vulnerable. Even in the dull buzz of discomfort, God was and is speaking through it.

I had witnessed in the life of my dad and was experiencing a kind of “contraction” that is woven into the fabric of our lives – whether we want it or not. It can be the end of some if they harden their hearts or try to anesthetize the pain; but it’s among the richest soil for the Kingdom of God to plant new seeds and cultivate new harvest.

Bear in mind that I’m writing this from the perspective of a guy who is still seriously in the middle of the poop storm. I’m probably holding on to this simply to save my own sanity. Heck – I might not even get this out totally right, but here goes:

I watched as one good but ultimately unnecessary thing after another – independence, farm, prestige, etc. – was peeled away from my dad’s life. After all of it was gone and he had nothing of earthly value left to give, we were still by his side. And even if we weren’t, there would have been twenty legions of the Kingdom’s messengers bearing witness.

Why? Because the fact that Bob Cook was was an intrinsic good; and in this life or the next, someone was going to recognize and celebrate it.

I was simply with him in the last hours he drew breath; taking nothing from him but attending to him as best I could (and believe me, there are those who can do it better – I saw them). In that time when the veil thinned between our world and the next, I experienced just a taste of God’s great love for us in all of our embarrassing, bumbling selfishness.

But even more than that, I saw how very, very little we bring to the table – and how much is best left behind for Love’s dreams for us to truly unfold. And it took the holiday season that I dreaded to remind me, yet again, of what we celebrate:

…Mild He lays His glory by, 
Born that all no more may die: 
Born to raise the kin of earth, 
Born to give them second birth. 
Hark! the herald angels sing,
‘Glory to the new-born King !’

(bolded words are my amendments – I wanted as little as possible to get in the way of this reality that we sing about)

Jesus, the One who ignited and arranged the stars of the one hundred billion galaxies that we know about, laid aside all of the adulation and trappings of his heavenly station, and CAME. So that the anguish I felt and the waves of grief that still take me by surprise are NOT the last word in my father’s life.

And as hard as it was to watch my father’s fall from earthly notoriety, Jesus fell so much farther. He thoughtlessly cast aside the billion dollar Megaball ticket and dove into the crud of our bad choices… to rescue us.

Because his love for us is. that. boundless – greater than the combined energy of the galaxies he spoke into being. And in this hard, hard season, I got just a little tiny taste of that.

There will be further thoughts on this, I’m sure. You are getting something pretty raw this year – and I’m certain that I’m going to do a few face plants living it out. A quote that flew by on my Twitter feed a couple of weeks ago has captured my imagination:

When I understand that everything happening to me is to make me more Christlike, it solves a great deal of anxiety.

~ A. W. Tozer

Everything? Even my pain? Even this?

I’m clinging to that hope. Clinging.

I give God thanks for who all of you are in my life and wish you a Merry Christmas.