I MISS YOU TOO

Today, I was dropping my son Cohen off to school and told him I was leaving for a few days and wouldn't see him when he got home. Like usual, I asked him to be the best helper he could and to listen to his mom. He said he would and also said that he would make sure he asked if his sisters were ok if they started crying(something we went over the other night). Then very enthusiastically he asked, "are you going to find your mom?!" You see, not very long ago, I spent two weeks away from home, walking the streets of Seoul, South Korea, in search of my birth mother and Cohen remembers this time very well. "Are you going to find your mom?!" "No son, not this time. I'm just going to go play my guitar with a bunch of friends." We sat in silence for just a min or two which for him means he's crafting a novel in his head, he's a deep thinker. "Dad, I think you're going to find your mom." I don't really know how to ever respond to that except by saying, "I hope so." Another minute pause in the conversation.

"Dad?"

"Yes, buddy?" 

"I think he's...”(she, he, interchangeable always) “I think he’s walking around in the world... and she misses you."

I had my sunglasses on, so my five-year-old tears were hidden.
Does she? Is she out there, on this big ol', floating piece of dirt, missing me? I hope so.

Human connection is one of God's greatest gifts to us. It's the way that God designed His people. He designed us to love and to be loved. Missing someone is part of the design. It's the error message, the swirling beach ball in the middle of the screen, the check engine light. When you're missed or missing someone, it means that there's a hole, this gap, this disconnect that only you or that person can make right for the other. I've lived with an internal error message my whole life; it's something that I click "remind me next week" on. Sometimes I don't even notice, because I've lived with it for so long. But, in most cases, we don't have to live missing someone or being missed.

I want you to know today, that you are missed. You are so deeply important to someone, that you, in this very moment, are missed. That someone loves you, cares for you, and misses you. How amazing would it be to get a call, email, text from that someone that just said: "I miss you." That I'm sure would be amazing; actually, I know it would be amazing. Maybe you can be that person today, that reaches out and says "I miss you." I can promise that if you do that, you'll be participating in part of God's design. Don't let today end with an "I hope so." Let it end with "I miss you too."