history

A few weeks ago, my dad's wife sold their home and moved into something better suited quite quickly, and my sister drove from PA to OH to grab any last of dad's things we hoped not to lose in the transition. Little by little Lisa's been going through boxes, and she texted me yesterday telling me that she had a box of binders of every single blog I ever wrote, printed every time I posted. 

In case the internet lost them one day, Dad had them. 

I wrote the blog very first for him. We had moved to Quebec for language and cultural training, then straight to Haiti, and phone was hard, emails were being copied and pasted to him, my sister, my aunt and few supporters and friends, and I finally began a small "MattStaceyHaiti" blog so the daily updates could be found in one place. 

There wasn't a time in Haiti when I finally hit "publish" that I didn't picture dad, glasses down his nose, reading it and answering his questions. I didn't know he first hit "print" and then read it and saved it and shared it. 

What I started for him quickly became apparent was actually for me. I am confident that many of our experiences in Haiti that could have been considered traumatic and perhaps a part of me still, were processed and released instead within days or weeks because of writing. 

How can I explain this to dad? I often wondered, and as I did, I found the Lord, I found hope, I found prayers, I found words. 

I often told people that by the time they read about it, I had, in many ways, worked it through and surrendered it. 

The other main question was always, What is the Lord trying to teach me? and how often writing has helped me find Him, again and again. 

It was my mom, when I came home from that first missions trip on fire for the Lord and cold over the idea of college, training, and preparation, who probably tearfully surrendered all my previous music performance dreams and convinced me I SHOULD get some further education first. As in, gave me no choice :) When bewildered over what to study if music was fading, she said, "I always thought you were good at writing?" Frustrated over the delay to be off to the mission field, I poured through the list of majors at Asbury, and checked "Journalism" because I figured if I had to get a degree, I could probably journal, and that was it.

And ever since, Dad was collecting and reading and praying, and even when I felt so far away I wasn't sure ANYONE was listening, or cared...I wrote for Dad, and in search of the Father. I know there were writings hard to read, and I know some seasons were incredibly busy and broken for him. But he always drew close, and never did we speak on the phone that I repeated anything I had written...he already knew. It's why he was calling or coming. 

In a box in an empty basement are binders and binders of my silly blogs. 

And when you lose your parents, you never stop missing having ridiculous fans like that.