This is my friend, Jason (and me). I’ve known Jason for about twelve years. Crazy story. Unsure of what to do with his life he decides to move to Utah (like you do when you don’t know what to do with your life). He wants to move on a Tuesday. U-Haul doesn’t have a truck until Thursday so he buys some scalped tickets to see the Foo Fighters (exactly what I would do if I couldn’t move on a Tuesday).
At the Foo Fighters he meets Katie. He postpones his move until Saturday because he wants to ask Katie out on Friday. They go out. Katie thinks he’s cool, in spite of the fact he’s going to Utah the next day (ha, basically like, so, I like you enough to stay one more day in Phoenix, but not enough to not move to Utah tomorrow).
The next day, Saturday, he’s got his U-Haul packed. Literally, it’s packed. He’s leaving Phoenix In the cab of the truck. Sporting his new Foo Fighters t-shirt, but… he’s beginning to reconsider. I know, weird. He knows if he stays he loses his Utah job and Utah house, but he cannot shake the feeling. So, he prays for a “sign." And then his truck breaks down (some signs take a while, others happen quickly).
Fast-forward a few weeks. Jason is back in Phoenix. He reconnects with Katie. He gets a postcard from my church.They decide to give the church a try. They dig it (the preaching’s not great, but everything else is really cool). They both start to think more about God and life. Something is happening to them. It can pretty much be summed up this way: While they are falling in love with each other, they begin to realize there is a God who has loved them all their lives. I know, powerful stuff. Then they get engaged. I get the honor of marrying them in Hawaii (because I only do destination weddings).
Crazy: the trajectory of Jason and Katie’s life is changed all because U-Haul doesn’t have a truck available on a Tuesday.
They become special friends of ours. We move to KS, but we stay in touch. Then an icy January 1, 2015 happens. Our lives are violently ruptured. Hundreds of friends like Jason and Katie reach out to us. We could not have made it without these friends. A great number of them wind up expressing really genuine and amazing love to us. People do all kinds of crazy things. One crazy thing involves Jason and Katie coming to visit and giving me a gift. I open the box and it’s a shirt with a simple design Jason created (yep, the one I’m wearing in the photo). It’s simple. And brilliant: LQVE. Q for Quincy. I know! Genius.
I take a picture and send it to my friend, Matt, who’s like, “Uh, this is really cool.”
I’m like, “I know.”
Then before I even try it on I buy the URL (you know you’ve given a good gift when the recipient buys the domain name before trying it on).
So… thank you Jason for the LQVE idea. And thank you God, for sending people to help us move through the pain. Of course, we haven’t moved entirely through the pain. That may never happen, but we are moving.
I did not deserve to lose Quincy. But, the truth is, I’m not sure I deserved to have her in the first place. Not because God or life isn’t good. I didn’t deserve her because it would’ve made her conditional upon my behavior. But, people are not conditional on the behavior of others.
People are gifts. And Quincy was a gift.
Like all gifts (including t-shirts, and logos, and friends designing websites, and cards, and hugs, and people going to Haiti with you, and people flying to the MidWest in the middle of Winter, and love offerings, and prayers, and on, and on…) I am unable to control when they come or when they go.
I can only control my response. My response is simply, “thank you."