heart break
I look down the row all the way to my three babies, now all taller than me–my girls, their legs curving in all the same places as mine, Adam, with shoulders to match Kevin’s. Laser lights stretch across the room like sunbeams. The beat of the music trembles over my cheeks. Even in the darkened arena, I can see the bend of Adam’s arms as he holds them out in worship. He reaches like a child. Pick me up. He sings in falsetto, in the voice he reserves for God, oblivious to how he sounds, his brow furrowed the way it was on the day he was born.
Next to Adam, Riley reaches high, extending her arms as far as she can, as though maybe she can touch those cords of light with the tips of her fingers. She sings wide-open, loud, and obliviously off-key, as though these are the easiest words of all, easier than any have ever come. And beside her, closest to us, Zoe dances a little with the music, singing, palms up and filling.
There’s a grace when the heart is under fire
Another in the Fire, Hillsong United
Another way when the walls are closing in
And when I look at the space between
Where I used to be and this reckoning
I know I will never be alone
There was another in the fire
Standing next to me—
I sing, but suddenly the words drown, catching in my throat. I’m looking at the Shadrachs and Meshachs to my Abednego, Kevin beside me, breathing with me, and then our children, now nearly grown. Day by day, all kinds of flames lick at the edges of us, but here we stand, unsinged. Troubles melt while we sing; challenges fall like ropes loosed from our arms. In worship, nothing temporary can bind us.
I know countless deadly furnaces too hot for venturing close. I’m sure you to do too. We live, so we know those leaping flames. But on Adam’s face just now, by the light flickering across the chiseled lines of his cheeks, I see the recognition of a greater power than the power to wreck the body. My son, who grapples so for words, who sometimes seems so locked away by autism–has literally always been prolific in worship. His best relationship is God. And there’s another kind of fire reserved for those who refuse to worship anyone else.
It’s like the song says, and I see it now in Adam’s eyes: he has never been alone. Collective worship opens our eyes to each other, even more, to the presence of God-with-us. And nothing, not one thing, will ever be able to separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). There was another in the fire. There will always be another.
At the end, we file out of the arena in a clog of people. Having led the way, I glance back to make sure I can see all of mine, only to find Adam, walking lean and tall, shoulder to shoulder with strangers, his cheeks soaked with unhindered tears. Audibly he weeps, without hiding his contorted features, shattered, as he really only ever is, by worship.
