words of a daughter

I just opened up a new book which I'm determined to dig into, and before even reading the first page, I stumbled upon the surprising precursor for this blog. The book's name is Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias... I borrowed it from my parents a while back, and have not opened it up until now. When I did open it, a piece of paper fell out. So it begins.

The escaped piece of paper was, I discovered, a receipt. It had apparently been pressed between the pages somewhere. My father's signature is on the receipt. I began to study it and discovered that it was a proof of payment to LeBonheur children's hospital, made back in 2004 on behalf of my brother. I sat here and looked at that piece of paper for a couple minutes, a hundred different thoughts slamming around at once. After a moment or two of staring at my dad's signature, my eyes began to fill. I don't know exactly what about this small thing moved me so emphatically, but move me it did.

Perhaps it was the fact that it's my dad's signature. So constant, all my life - it has looked the same. I remember seeing it when I was five... I remember seeing it on Thanksgiving, last week. I live in a different city now than he and mom, and although sentimental, I couldn't help but feel like I had a piece of home here with me on that piece of carbon paper. That signature, which has affirmed and provided and allowed and condoned and made possible so many aspects of my life... just resting there in ink, forgotten and pressed between the pages of a book.

I don't know what the medical bill was for... I would have been 20 years old at the time, making my brother around 18. I was in college, probably doing my own thing, keeping my grades up, maintaining some form of a social life... probably interested in some guy, worried about what I was going to be and what I was going to do with my life - while my parents were signing receipts to keep us healthy, keep us safe, keep us happy and naively blessed. It breaks my heart... and I'm so glad that it does .

What strikes me now at the age of 27 is how incredibly much my parents have given of themselves, from the moment that they discovered me and my brother would be. It strikes me now as I see my friends becoming parents and beginning that same journey as my parents did, how much of a commitment they made to Christ and to us, to be the parents that they have been and continue to be to this day. Now that my brother and I have both found the loves of our life and have begun homes of our own, those choices, that mindset of service, that love they have offered us strikes me in new ways. My parents continue to be a blessing to me, literally every day - and God has blessed me today with the reminder of that, by opening my eyes to see the reflection of His constance and His love, given graciously through the vessel of my dad's life... the image of God's provision, the love that a human father like my dad can provide, in the form of a signature.

You better believe, I'm keeping that receipt forever.