Page 11 of There I Find Hope

She turned to her dresser, thinking she wanted to get clothes out that she could work in, since she had two rooms to clean, and maybe she could help her mom with some other things.

Although she felt a lot better than she had just half an hour ago, she figured that there were still going to be lows along with highs. Still, if she could get her thinking aligned in the right direction, hopefully her actions would follow.

She opened the top drawer of the dresser to pull out some clean clothes when her eyes landed on the letter her mother had brought in. It wasn’t a card like she had expected. But an actual letter. Her address was handwritten on the front, and the return address... She squinted and tilted her head to try to read it. There was no name. Just a PO Box number. For Strawberry Sands. Odd. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, although that wasn’t shocking. People didn’t send letters anymore, and she didn’t see too many people’s handwriting anymore.

Everyone typed or texted.

Grabbing her shirt and some underthings, she shut the drawer, picked out a pair of pants from another drawer, and grabbed the letter, looking at it as she walked over to her bed.

She thought maybe she would wait to read it until after she cleaned the rooms. It would give her something to look forward to. But maybe she could think about the letter and write a response later.

And then she realized it was the first thing she’d actually been interested in in a week. So, setting her clothes on her bed, she sat down slowly and opened the letter, wondering the entire time who it could possibly be from.

It was handwritten. She could hardly believe it. And then she began to read.

When she was finished, there were tears rolling down her cheeks, but they were good tears, she thought. Tears that someone she barely even knew had been prompted to write a letter, to ease her grief, to make her feel better. That was kind of him.

Setting the letter aside, she finished dressing and grabbed two more espresso beans on her way out the door. She managed to get both rooms cleaned by three fifteen, meeting her mom once in the hall.

Her mom smiled at her, and Sunday thought there might actually have been tears in her eyes as well.

She hated that her mom had been so worried. But she couldn’t change it now. All she could do was to try to lean on the Lord and have faith in His plan, putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that she needed to go on with her life.

She showered when she got back to her room, seeing the letter still lying on her nightstand where she left it. It hadn’t been far from her thoughts. And she wanted to answer. To send a reply. To thank the person for taking the time to not just give her a few words of comfort after everybody else had left her but actually write a letter and send it to her a week later, when she really needed it.

It actually took her mind off Blake and all the pain and grief.

With a towel around her hair and another one around her body, she grabbed the notebook out of the bottom of her nightstand, along with the pen, and sat down in the little chair by the window. She tapped the pen against the windowsill and looked at the lake as she thought about what to write.

Dear Business Boy,

I don’t hate the lake.

Like you, I’ve always loved it. It’s funny, because I didn’t even think about blaming the lake. I blamed myself.

I realized today, though, that blaming myself took a lot of credit for myself and didn’t give God any. I guess I knew God could have saved my son, and maybe I was a little bit angry about that.

Okay. A lot angry.

But God is God. He created me. He created Blake. He has every right to take Blake whenever He wants to. Who am I to think that just because I love Blake, that means that God shouldn’t have the right to take him from me? I didn’t give Blake breath. I didn’t form him while he was growing inside of me. It didn’t take any thought on my part to create that baby at all. God did it. He did everything. Who am I to think that He should have done it differently? Or that He should do anything differently?

I realized how arrogant I was being. That I wanted to dictate to God how life should go. I have no right to do that. I have no right to do anything other than submit to His will and accept what He gives me.

Of course, I can pray for a different outcome. I can pray for changes. For example, my mom owns a bed-and-breakfast. Maybe you know it. She is concerned that the new hotel going up outside of Strawberry Sands will take business away from her.

I worry about that some too. But isn’t that arrogant again? Shouldn’t I be acting like whatever God allows to happen will be a good thing? Don’t I trust Him?

I know it’s taken a long time for whoever’s putting the hotel in to get all the approvals that they need. There were times where I prayed that it would be denied. But they weren’t. God knows. He puts the people in power, and He takes them away too. It’s just my job to pray that those people make wise decisions. I have to admit, I didn’t pray that they would make wise decisions. I prayed that they would make the decisions that I wanted them to make. The Bible says that the powers that be are ordained by God.

Again, my thinking just wasn’t quite aligned with the way God wants me to behave.

Anyway, your letter made me think, and I wanted to let you know that I still look at the lake and think it’s beautiful. I look at the lake, and I’m amazed at God’s power and majesty. I look at the lake, and I can’t believe that God just spoke it into existence. It’s amazing to me.

I’m also coming around to the idea that I don’t need to hold on to the guilt that I feel. It wasn’t that I was a bad mom. Even though it feels that way. It was that God allowed it to happen. I was being diligent, I was watching my son. I just took my eyes off him for a few seconds to look at the horses, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I could have been watching him, and I still wouldn’t have been able to save him. Not if it was the Lord’s will for him to go.

Anyway, this letter ended up being a lot longer than what I expected. The only other thing I wanted to say was thank you for writing. I appreciate your concern for me at the funeral. It was a hard day. I’m not gonna lie.

But I think the harder days were after that. When everyone left and I felt alone. That’s when I missed Blake the most.