Dear Judah: Knowing You

On fatherhood, interruptions, and Lightning McQueen

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Knowing You

Dear Judah,

Every time I write one of these letters I am shocked at how much time has already passed. At the time I am writing this you are 2 ½ years old.

This summer we’re living in Northern Michigan because of your mom’s job. We packed up our minivan and left Nashville a few weeks ago. You and I have spent a lot of time together over the last few weeks, and it’s been a gift, because of all the things I love in life, being with you is my favorite.

I’ve watched you wake up each morning in a daze, amazed that the sun rose again. You continue to remind me that ordinary things aren’t ordinary at all. An ant crawling along the sidewalk can stop you in your tracks. A passing firetruck gets your full attention. And if there is even a faint sound of a choo-choo train, our whole day is 100x better.

The other day we were having one of those days when nothing seemed to be going right.

Neither of us slept well.

Transitions are exhausting.

The sky was gray, which always seems to make things a little harder.

At one point you were upset because I carried you when you wanted to walk, and then a few minutes later you were upset because I wasn’t carrying you.

We bounced from one frustration to the next.

And in the middle of it all, I made the decision to stop trying to figure you out.

I stopped trying to manage every emotion and solve every problem.

I stepped back from the impossible task of making everything okay.

I think I’ve spent the last two and a half years trying to understand who you’re becoming, looking for clues about which parts of you are already there and which parts are still waiting to emerge.

I think part of me believed that if I could figure you out, I could be a better father. Maybe I thought understanding you would somehow keep me from getting it wrong. And I do not like to be wrong.

But lately, I’ve realized that’s not my job.

My job isn’t to figure you out.

It’s to love you.

To faithfully show up with compassion and pay attention as you continue to grow and become.

To notice what makes your eyes light up. To laugh at the things you find funny. To ask questions. To learn your favorite songs and stories. To show you that you are loved. To remind you that God loves you endlessly. To be curious about who you are instead of trying to predict who you’ll become.

I thought part of being a father meant learning how to understand you—to decode your personality and figure out what makes you tick. But the older you get, the more I realize that you aren’t an equation to solve. You’re a person to know and love.

Plus, every time I think I’ve figured something out about you, you change. One week you’re obsessed with dump trucks. The next week it’s trains. The fears that seem big today disappear tomorrow. The foods you love become the foods you push away, except for fruit. You’re obsessed. You are constantly growing, constantly becoming.

Maybe that’s why trying to figure you out feels impossible. You’re still becoming the person God created you to be. And this becoming is an ongoing unfolding, not something you grow out of.

Knowing someone is different than figuring them out.

It’s the difference between studying a map and taking the trip.

Cars is your favorite movie right now, and I’m thankful for that because I love it too. There’s a decent chance I love it more than you do.

When I first watched Cars years ago, I thought it was a movie about going fast. But now that we’ve been watching it once a week for the last few months, I think it’s a movie about slowing down.

Lightning McQueen begins the story convinced that life is about getting somewhere as quickly as possible. Every relationship is secondary to the finish line. Every interruption feels like a delay. But somewhere along the way, he discovers that the people he meets matter more than the places he’s trying to go, and that the life he is actually living matters more than the life he imagined for himself.

For Lightning, the road he never wanted to travel becomes the place where he discovers friendship and purpose.

For me, the road I always wanted to travel, being your father, has taught me about the kindness of interruptions, the joy of letting go, and the beauty of trust.

When it comes to walking with God, I’ve noticed similarities. We ask Him to help us reach the destination we’ve chosen, while He quietly teaches us to pay attention to who is beside us. We pray for answers and open doors, while He gives us people to love, moments to slow down, and unexpected detours that shape us in ways we never could have imagined.

I like to have things figured out. I like plans. I like knowing what’s next. God knows this about me. Maybe that’s why God often meets me through interruptions. Some of the greatest gifts in my life have arrived as interruptions, unexpected detours that introduced me to people, places, and stories I never would have found if everything had gone according to plan.

More often than not, the gift isn’t waiting at the end of the journey.

It’s found on the road itself.

Which sounds cheesy, but we all know most cheesy sayings carry some measure of truth.

These days you and I aren’t trying to get anywhere in particular. We’re just learning to enjoy the road we’re already on.

We aren’t racing, just living. Embracing interruptions and calling them gifts, while singing Life is A Highway (a song I never thought I would like until we started singing it together).

It seems that God is less interested in helping me control my life than He is in helping me trust Him with it.

This is something you’ve been teaching me.

You don’t spend much time worrying about tomorrow. You don’t wake up wondering how everything will work out. We don’t need to plan out every moment. You trust that someone bigger than you is taking care of what you can’t see.

Judah, you have made me a slower person who is more willing to welcome interruptions.

And because of that, you’ve helped me see God more clearly.

I’m still trying to figure out a lot of things. I still like plans and I still get frustrated when interruptions show up uninvited.

But I’m also learning that loving someone isn’t the same thing as figuring them out.

Maybe that’s true of God too. We spend so much time trying to figure Him out when all along He has simply been inviting us to walk with Him.

Because of you, I’m re-learning something I wrote years ago:

Life is not a puzzle to solve.
It’s a gift to receive.

Life is not a race to be won.
It’s a road shared with people we love.

And God is not a problem to figure out.
He is a Father who can be trusted.

Especially because what we often call interruptions are actually invitations—to love, to be loved, and to pay attention to what matters most.

Love,

Dad

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