it's that feeling of sitting in the back seat
you check your seat belt because it's the only thing you have any say about
you're sitting behind the driver
you close your eyes and feel the the truck - heavy powerful quiet - quietly it moves along

later Lorde is singing Buzzcut Season on the stereo
and I feel my heart breaking
and I know hearts do break

last week my brother said,
"yeah, he breaks hearts for a living and it must be pretty rough even if it is lucrative"

(he was talking about the guy who had just told us that
my brother
has stage four cancer
my brother
has two months if he opts not for treatment
or
there's a plan a
and a plan b
and plan a comes with a two month trial ...
plan a seems like the place to start)

you sit in the back
and you close your eyes
and you think of the strangest things
and you reach for the best thoughts

Or ... And ... this
I knew my brother was sick and we had a pretty good idea that it was gonna be bad even before we finally got the full report, even before it was bad (I haven't read the pathology report yet and maybe I never will) ... I'm thinking about the stuff I've been trying to lean in to
the parts where God knows where each little one of us is at
the parts where God knows
and since He knows - it is as it should be even -
even if I can't stand high enough on my tippy toes to see it

you know ... it's just a lot
I'm really glad that I'm starting to hear the story that God longs for us to hear


we really are all in     the back seat
maybe we think we are driving
but
we're really in the back seat
it feels okay when you trust the driver

it hurts and it's a little bit scary but ... it feels safe