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Kevin still couldn’t fully comprehend this great gamble on God’s part. It seemed easier to only offer safe abundance, no other options. But then, Kevin was not God.
And maybe, for at least that moment, in this study with these men, that was the point.
“Kevin!” Mrs. Clayton burst into the dining room, her cheeks rosy and eyes bright. “You boys have to wrap this up. Helen just called, and you have to go!”
Heart ramping up to a sprint, Kevin shut the Bible the Claytons had given him a few weeks before and nearly knocked the chair beneath him over as he scrambled up. “The baby?”
Biting her lip, Elizabeth Clayton nodded with a grin. “The baby. I’m going with you, and you’ll leave me at your place with the boys.”
Ten hours, forty-seven minutes later Connor Michael Murphy made his debut. Seven pounds, four ounces, dark hair like Kevin’s, and big curious eyes that took in everything new about him, Connor barely made a peep. He cried for a moment—Kevin was sure the nurse had pinched the baby to force a sound out of his brand-new son. But as soon as the warm washing water touched his wet, matted hair, Connor’s soft wails ended, and he simply took in life.
Cleaned and swaddled, the nurse passed the warm bundle of life into Kevin’s arms.
There were no words.
Though Connor was his third son, the truth was this was the first birth Kevin was clear minded and more in wonder than utter terror when he first held his newborn. Connor gazed up at him, complete trust in those beautiful eyes, and a wave of awe washed over Kevin.
Had love ever seemed this big?
Kevin squeezed his eyes shut and let himself drown in it.
Step seven: humbly ask God to remove all my shortcomings.
Nothing had ever seemed so important in his life. Arms wrapped secure around this miracle of his son, Kevin bowed his head until he could smell the fresh newness of life.God, take all my failures. For the sake of this child. And my other boys. For Helen. Make me a new man—a better one.
In the thirty-six years since Connor had been born, Kevin had not forgotten that prayer. As he prepared his heart, in the space of solitary quiet given him before his bypass surgery, he pondered that moment afresh.
Only a couple of weeks before Connor’s birth, Dave had led Kevin to Christ by showing him that repentance and faith was all Jesus had asked for. It had seemed so ridiculously simple—to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. But in that simplicity, Kevin had discovered a power outside of himself. The acknowledgment, as the second step to recovery stated, that there was a Power beyond himself—which required the first step, that Kevin admitted he was, in fact, powerless over alcohol and his life had become unmanageable.
It hadalwaysbeen unmanageable—which had been why Kevin had always felt desperation clawing against his soul. That had been the reason he had not turned the wheel that awful night. He chose to wreck because he was so entirely out of control.
It’d been a hard admission. But one that had led him to that moment, holding his brand-new baby boy and asking God to make him new.
Perhaps that was a reason Kevin had struggled so much over the past two years as he’d watched Connor—that baby boy grown up—lose Sadie and dive into the agony of such grief. Kevin’s life had been changed dramatically when Connor had been born, and from that moment on he’d worked daily to be different. Prayed daily for grace to be his way out of unmanageable chaos and into a life worth living. Kevin’s daily aim had been to live a godly life before his sons so they wouldn’t have to experience the web of madness that Kevin had nearly died within.
He had asked so many times over the years for God’s protection over his sons. Sadie’s death had seemed like an unreasonableno. It had spiraled Kevin back to that confusing place he’d been in during the Genesis Bible study, when he’d asked,Why would God do that?
Some days Kevin felt like the answer Dave had given him was good enough. God offered the choice to love. To obey. To live in His abundance rather than looking with envy at what had been kept away.
Other times, though, thewhyseemed unfathomable. And it made all the other whys seems just as empty and dark.
Why Sadie? Why Connor? Why Reid?
And they’d harken back the other unanswered whys: Why Jackson’s cleft palate? Why Jacob’s hardness? Why Tyler’s fall? Why Brayden’s rebellion?
And those were just a few, about his children. There had been others over the years as well. Big, hard moments for which, honestly, there were still no satisfying answers.
Like, why Dave?
As that question resurfaced, pain squeezed Kevin’s chest. A reoccurring ache that had ebbed and flowed over the years whenever his mind drifted toward his best friend.
There simply wasn’t an answer. But there was a soft presence and the words of Psalm 116 whispered in Mrs. Clayton’s tear-laden voice several weeks after her only child had been buried.
Return to your rest, oh my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.A broken praise if ever there was one.
And so moments before he was to have his heart stopped so that it could be repaired, Kevin echoed the words of his faithful friend’s mother.
“Return to your rest, oh my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.”
