Dad, the letter I never got to give you.
Dad, today would have been your 61st birthday. I can only imagine the embrace you received from Jesus as you entered His Kingdom. There are so many questions I would love to ask you about Heaven!!
I’m doing okay, but I miss you so much. I have a peace that I cannot explain but believe it to be so for two reasons: The first is I know you are with Jesus, and the second is you told me everything you needed to while you were still with us. Daily you told me you loved me and were proud of me. I couldn’t ask for more.
Although you were able to tell me everything you needed to say, there are a few things I didn’t get to share with you. In fact, 4 days before you passed away, I was on a plane coming home from China and wrote you a letter that I never got to give to you. I’d like to share that letter with you now on your birthday.
“Hey, Papa, I can’t wait to come home and see you. I miss your BBQ skills, the way you make me laugh, and your big hugs. I have a 13-hour flight ahead of me and thought I would write you a little thank-you note.
Papa, when I told you that I was gay 5 years ago, it was the hardest thing ever. Of course, your response was classic, and you asked if I was now going to be a priest. But I know you, Dad, and you joke about things that make you uncomfortable, so uncomfortable by me coming out that you didn’t want to tell anybody, and for the most part, I did just that with the exception of my family.
During the course of my early 30’s, I stayed the course of being the Matt I believed you and everyone wanted me to be, the guy that had the answers, the golden boy, and the model Christian because being gay makes you less of a Christian or so I thought. I kept myself perched high on that ivory tower for so many years. I kept relationships at a distance because I couldn’t let anyone get too close or they’ll know my secret, and I smile when really I just want to break down and cry. There are no shoulders for me to cry on and only a handful of people I can talk to. Dad, it’s so lonely. I feel so isolated and feel so alone.
I tried everything to ignore what I’ve known since I was just a little boy. Yeah, I knew I was different. For me, I sedated the pain through business and being hyper successful. Before I was 24, I finished two master degrees in 9 months, worked and traveled in over 70 countries before I was 26, started a multi-million-dollar company before I was 30, and employed hundreds of people to date. Dad, as my business partner, we’ve done so many cool and amazing things. We built an entire company on the principle of giving and have given hundreds of thousands away and inspired others to do the same. AMEN!
But all these achievements and successes only brought more isolation and pain in my life. The reason I kept traveling or would start another million-dollar company every year was because I KNEW the moment I stopped was the moment I would have to face Matt…..the guy I was ashamed of, the one with so much guilt, with so much shame, the one I hated and all because I was gay.
As the years went on, I didn’t think I could take the pain anymore. I became more isolated, more distant, depressed, and busier than ever. No time to stop, no time to breathe, and all I wanted was rest. That all changed just before I left for China. You came to my house, and we had a one-on-one talk, and that’s where my story changed. That’s where I want to say “thank you.”
Let’s be honest. You are always joking. In fact, I’ve known you for 35 years, and I still don’t know when you are serious. Well, just before I boarded that flight, you sat me down, and we had a serious conversation, only the second in my life; the first when you told me my duck Daisy was eaten by our German Shepherd…yeah, I was only 6.
You told me you loved me and that you were proud of me, something that you told me every day of my life. Thank you. Where some kids would die to hear that once from their parent, I heard it daily from you and mom. But there was more you wanted to say, and we were now going to talk about the elephant in the room that we hadn’t discussed in over 4 years. In one breath, absolute sincerity, and a connection with my soul, you looked in my eyes, straight to my heart, and said I was your son. I sarcastically blurted out, “Yeah, your gay son.” However, in wisdom and grace you corrected me in saying, “No, my son!” In just a moment, and with only a few words, you broke so many chains in my life. You gave me a passage of freedom that I needed to hear from you. Thank you.
Dad, you’ll never know the power of the words you spoke to me and how it changed my life. I wanted to write you a little letter to simply say “Thank you.” Thank you, Papa! I love you so much and can’t wait to come home and see you. I appreciate all that you’ve shown me, like hard work, making people laugh, and how to make someone feel special. I’m looking forward to 2016. It’s going to be an incredible year, and I couldn’t do it without you. We started something pretty awesome 10 years ago and look where we are at now. So awesome! Thanks for always being there when I need you and someone I can count on always.
Love, your son!
This is the letter I never got to give to my dad. I came home on Wednesday and my dad died on Saturday. Although I did talk with him the day before he had a heart attack, I didn’t get to give him this letter.
A mentor told me that funerals are for the living and not for the dead, and it makes total sense because after death it’s only the living that can make a change in their life. By writing this letter, it is less for my dad and more for anyone reading it because you’re the only one that has the ability to choose. My advice is to choose life, enter the light and choose the one who is life and can give life.
My entire life I preached a message of Gods’ grace, His love and freedom, and how He sets us free from guilt and shame, but they were only words to me and a message I never truly received. Today, Jesus, I receive the love as your son….just like my dad said…..his son. All glory and wonder has overcome my deepest fears in writing this letter: fear from rejection, fear from approval, fear from standing still, fear from truth, fear from loving and being loved.
Here is what I learned. If you live in the darkness, you think you see, but you see things as they are. What’s amazing is Jesus is the light, but He knew no one would recognize the light, so He had to have John the Baptist point to the light so that people could see John and through John see Jesus. John’s job was to make sure people recognized the light, and really, that is our job, that people would see you so they can see Jesus, to make the invisible God visible!
When the light first comes on, that light can be blinding and overwhelming, and I think people misunderstand the light of God. See, I feel a lot of people feel God is condemning and judgmental because when they stood in the light, they saw things that had been hidden. It’s difficult when God turns on the light, and we blame God because He caught us naked, and we blame the light because it made us naked, but the light didn’t make us naked; we were naked in the dark. See, the light didn’t break us because we were broken in the dark. The light didn’t condemn us; we were condemned in the dark, and the light simply came on, and we saw our condition in the dark.
Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world but to bring the world life, and somehow along the way the church lost the plot and became the epicenter for condemnation and judgment. The church became known as the most unsafe place in the world because if you are imperfect, if you are broken, if you are struggling, you better not go there because they will put a light on you until you are sweating, and you confess your inadequacy to be loved or to matter. I believe more people are open to Jesus than we think. They just don’t know that Jesus is open to them. The light was always supposed to be a guide to freedom.
When you step into the light, you realize the light was never about revealing your brokenness but bringing your healing. Wouldn’t it be a beautiful thing if people looked at you and me and they saw us pointing to a light that freed us from guilt and shame, freed us from judgment and condemnation so that they could trust the light because they could trust us?
My invitation for you today is to trust the light and trust the freedom the light brings.
