My brother and I both felt strongly that we wanted to speak at his memorial service, and my mom gave us the go-ahead to do so. Dad died on a Saturday evening at sunset, and his service was the Thursday after. As we dealt with the shock and finality of Dad's death, friends kept asking: "what can we do?" One of my mom's dear friends, who I later learned had lost her dad when she was a teen, brought us toilet paper. Yes, TP. I remember looking through the front window of our house, watching her unload a giant case of toilet paper from her Toyota Camry. What a strange thing, I thought. People were bringing us meals and doing our dishes and reminding me to wash my hair. And here comes Mimi and Nancy up the sidewalk with toilet paper. But you know what? We needed that TP. These women had known grief and known trouble and known sadness, and somehow they knew - when tragedy strikes, and you're just trying to keep your head above water, you don't go to the store for toilet paper. And if you're like our family, and you're immensely blessed by friends by the dozen coming over to hug you, cry with you, laugh with you, tell stories about TR with you - well, with all those friends over, you're going to need more toilet paper than on a usual September week.
It was a Bob Goff thing to do, to bring toilet paper without us asking. It was love in action, showing up, not waiting to be told how to help. Simply put, love does. It was a behind-the-scenes gesture, not a glamorous task, but it meant so much.
A friend gave me a copy of Bob's book, Love Does, in July 2012. Drew and I got engaged in June, and I thought she was giving me a book about marriage, since love was in the title. I waited a few weeks to read it, and when I finally did, I devoured it. I remember telling my family stories from the book at our dinner to celebrate my July birthday. You have to read it, I told them. I remember smiling at my dad, sitting around our dining room table, telling him how the author reminded me of him - not taking no for an answer, living that saying my dad said so often: "What do you have to lose by just asking? The worst thing they could do is tell you no." Isn't that just like Bob Goff, sitting on that bench waiting to be allowed to attend law school?
Bob Goff has his pilot's license, just like my dad, and flies an amphibious plane, just like my dad. He throws candy from his deck at his home in Canada to the kayakers below, just as my dad threw candy to boaters on the Highland Lakes. I wrote about how the NTSB officer had never seen anything like it when they examined Dad's plane after the crash - bubble gum by the fistful came pouring out of the tail of the plane. There's a quote in his book, live life like you're being shot out of a canon. Gosh, is that my dad, or what!?
The week after Dad's accident, my close friends were grieving too. They wanted to know how to help. Distant friends came out of the woodwork, wondering the same thing, too. I received countless texts and facebook messages and emails, people sorry for our sudden loss, people wanting us to know they were there, they were hurting, too.
As I prepared to speak at Dad's service, I hoped I would find something short and sweet to say, to capture Dad, to honor him. I remembered a letter Dad had typed and left on my desk when he and mom moved me in for college. I wanted to read from that letter, to share his humor, his advice, his reminder that I should pray often, and his encouragement for me to learn to flirt. (Ouch. It's a real eye opener when your Dad tells you that you need to learn to flirt.) And I wanted to read the quote from the Notebook, a movie he loved and wasn't ashamed to admit it. And as I prepared to add one quote from a book so fresh on my mind, Love Does, about living life "like you were shot out of a cannon", a lightbulb went off in my head: I know what they can do. All these sweet friends, wanting to know what they could do for us, I had an answer: they could read this book. They could leave the service and be charged to live their lives more like Bob Goff and more like my dad: on fire. Brave. Bold. Far from perfect. Adventurous. Chasing the Lord's will. Loving like were made of it.
I am so thankful for so much, in the wake of Dad's accident. Our gratitude is often hard to express in words. The Lord is near the brokenhearted, and for that we are so thankful. The Lord drew near to us through you, sweet friends.
It was a joy to hear from dozens of folks who heard of Love Does for the first time at my dad's service, and who read it and were changed by Bob's stories and faith. I love how scripture is woven through the text yet never directly quoted: it is an easy book to begin discussions about Jesus, to point us to Christ without pointing fingers, to remind us that God is Love.
I realize this post is long enough, but our gratefulness continues. I've had the pleasure of seeing Bob in real life a handful of times - the first, when Mary C, Mom, and I went to the Love Does conference in Austin in 2013. He opened the conference by throwing buckets of candy into the crowd - my dad was a sugar fiend and it just felt like what my mom calls "God winks" - like the Lord was saying, I see you. I knew your dad and I love you and I see you. And if a grown man throwing candy into a crowd causes me to be reminded that God is real, and that sounds crazy to you well.... sorry that I'm not sorry.
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| Lainey and I with Bob's briefcase - he asked us to hold it, we didn't peak. |
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| Meeting Bob for the first time in ATX |
Then Yellowstone Academy had Bob to speak at their annual luncheon, and I was on staff at Yellowstone for a hot second (another thing for which I'm so grateful) and my mom and I got to be the INCREDIBLY lucky fools who drove Bob from his hotel to the school for a tour and then to the luncheon. Spending just a few minutes with Bob lets you know he is the real. deal. He walks the talk, people.
We heard him speak last year at an event for West Houston Young Life, and it has been neat to sort of track him for five years, from the book release to five years later. He's still the same guy, huge smile, loud laugh, love for Jesus, cell phone printed in the book for all to see. Last September, in 2016, Bob spoke at the YL banquet and I furiously took notes. He talked about how their cabin burnt to the ground - a cabin he and his wife Sweet Maria have used so graciously to serve the Lord and to serve His people. They open their home up to SO MANY and give their lives away and the house burns to the ground! How hard to understand. He was talking about this to the ballroom full of Houston folks and he said this: "God shows His presence through the difficult things in our lives.(insert my loud AMEN here.) And I wanted to scissor kick people IN THE NECK when they told me that our cabin burned down to show God's power. No!!!! But He does show us His presence." He also talked about not making the gospel easier, just more simple. If you're making it easy, you're messing it up, he said. Don't water down scripture, but do make it accessible for thirsty people. Speak love and truth and Jesus into their lives.
This September will mark five years since Dad was last on this Earth. I don't miss him any less, and I don't long for him any less, but I do think I've learned these past five years how to live more fully. How to hopefully live with more love. I hope my life shows people that God is good, all the time, even in the midst of inexplicable hurt. While I've been missing my dad and learning to live without him here, we have been living. And loving. One day at a time, like my mom models for us.
Speaking of one day at a time: I was recently listening to an interview with Bob on a podcast (type Bob Goff into the search bar on podcast app and just pick something - you can't go wrong!) And Bob was saying that his team doesn't really show him his schedule for more than one day at a time. He is all over the world, all over the place, speaking and leading and telling stories of how to live and love well and spread Jesus - and his schedule MUST be overwhelming at times. So when he was asked about that, he talked about how he is never really shown more than one day or a week at a time. It reminded me of my mom, telling us in those months after the accident, and telling us sometimes now, one day at a time, sugars, one day at a time.
Slowly, but surely, by God's grace, we move forward. Love Does.
(if you have not read the book yet, for the love of pete, get on with it! also, we have a bunch of extra copies. Drew ordered a case from the publisher a while back for us to giveaway to friends, to take on trips and leave in our hotel rooms for folks to find - he is always teaching me how to love extravagantly.)
“But the kind of love that God created and demonstrated is a costly one because it involves sacrifice and presence. It's a love that operates more like a sign language than being spoken outright.”
-Bob Goff
